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THE CONTEMPORARY 

SHORT STORY 

A PRACTICAL MANUAL 
By HARRY T. BAKER, M.A. 

instructor in english in the university op illinois; 

formerly special reader of fiction manuscripts, 

international magazine company, publishers 

of "good housekeeping," "harper's 

bazar," etc. 



D. C. HEATH & CO., PUBLISHERS 

BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO 






Copyright, 1916, 

By D. C. Heath & Co. 

1 l 6 



JAN -5 1917 



9CLA453527 



Co 

WHO HAS MADE THE STUDY OF 

ENGLISH LITERATURE 

A DELIGHT TO MANY GENERATIONS 

OF COLLEGE STUDENTS 



PREFACE 

A distinguished British critic, Professor Hugh Walker, 
remarks: "There is no other form of literature in which 
America is so eminent as in the writing of short stories." 
This dictum alone is sufficient justification for introducing 
a course in this subject into every college in the land. 
Not only is a better understanding and appreciation of 
the finest short stories fostered by such a course, but not 
a few students find themselves able to write tales that 
are accepted by reputable American periodicals — if not 
during their undergraduate years, at any rate shortly 
afterward. 

Writing fiction for the magazines is both an art and a 
business. This volume accordingly aims to teach promis- 
ing young authors, whether in or out of college, how to 
write stories that shall be marketable as well as artistic. 
It attempts to state succinctly, and as clearly as may be, 
some fundamental principles of short-story writing. These 
principles are based upon somewhat extensive reading of 
short fiction in English, botli classic and contemporary; 
of a pretty large number of manuscripts submitted to 
important periodicals; and of most of the critical works 
on the short story. Many of the pages are written from 
the editorial standpoint. I have not attempted to set 
up an impracticable ideal on the one hand, nor to concede 
too much to the lower range of popular taste on the other. 

O] 



Preface 

No apology need be offered, even in a university class- 
room, for the better sort of contemporary short stories. 
They justify themselves as worth-while studies of human 
life and character. They cannot be written without an 
adequate first-hand acquaintance with life. A good many 
lack polish of style; but a surprising number possess it. 
Surely, when so original a genius and so great an artist as 
Kipling devotes himself chiefly to the short story, no 
attitude of timidity is necessary in proclaiming that this 
form of literature has come into its own; and our best 
magazines will see to it that it does not decline. The 
short story can no longer be dismissed, with a lofty wave 
of the academic hand, as "mere enter tainment. ,, It must 
be taken seriously. 

Acknowledgment is made with gratitude to Professors 
C. T. Winchester, Bliss Perry, Brander Matthews, 
Stuart P. Sherman and Henry S. Canby, for suggestions 
and quotations obtained from their text books; also to 
Mr. Eric Schuler, secretary of the Authors' League of 
America, to the Methodist Review for permission to reprint 
a part of my article, "Some Notes on the Short Story," 
and to the following newspapers, magazines, publishers, 
and authors who have kindly allowed illustrative passages 
to be reproduced: the New York Times and Sun, the 
Saturday Evening Post, Harper's, Scribner's, the Pic- 
torial Review, Everybody's, the Smart Set, McClure's, 
Good Housekeeping, Harper's Bazar, the Metropolitan, the 
Bookman, the Strand, Henry Holt and Company, The 
Macmillan Company, Houghton Mifflin Company, Charles 
Scribner's Sons, Dodd, Mead and Company, Hearst's 
International Library Company, G. P. Putnam's Sons, 
Doubleday, Page and Company, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 

[vi] 



Preface 

Mr. W. W. Jacobs, Mr. Melville Davisson Post, Mr. 
Julian Street, Mr. Charles G. D. Roberts, Mr. Freeman 
Tilden, Mr. Donn Byrne, Mr. Thomas Grant Springer, 
Miss Fannie Hurst, Mrs. Gertrude Atherton, Mr. Ward 
Muir, Mr. Harry Leon Wilson, Mr. Herbert Quick. 



[vii] 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I. Originality: Kinds and Methods 1 

II. Common Faults 43 

III. Structure 84 

IV. Character vs. Plot 140 

V. Style and the Classics 176 

VI. How Magazines Differ 203 

VII. A Magazine Office from the Inside 233 

Appendix 249 

Suggestions for Beginners 249 

Test Questions 253 

A List of American Fiction Magazines 255 

A Few Books on the Short Story 257 

A List of Representative Short Stories 258 

Index 265 



[ix] 



THE CONTEMPORARY SHORT STORY 



THE CONTEMPORARY 
SHORT STORY 

CHAPTER I 
ORIGINALITY: KINDS AND METHODS 

Mr. Hawthorne's distinctive trait is invention, 
creation, imagination, originality — a trait which, in 
the literature of fiction, is positively worth all the 
rest. . . . The inventive or original mind as fre- 
quently displays itself in novelty of tone as in novelty 
of matter. Mr. Hawthorne is original at all points. 

— Edgar Allan Poe. 

It ought to be the first endeavour of a writer to 
distinguish nature from custom; or that which is 
established because it is right, from that which is right 
only because it is established. — Samuel Johnson, 
The Rambler. 

It is surely not unreasonable to expect that 
a writer who wishes to have his short stories 
accepted by a certain magazine shall familiarize 
himself with some of the fiction previously 
printed in that magazine — and in a good many 
others. Yet would-be contributors are con- 
stantly offering to patient editors tales whose 
plots are so threadbare that to print them 
would be to invite ridicule from a majority 

[1] 



The Contemporary Short Story 

of subscribers. The first duty of a fiction 
writer is to read fiction widely, in order to 
avoid the hackneyed and the trite. Ask any 
magazine editor what kind of story he wants, 
and he will tell you, in effect, that he wants 
the story that is "different," that is separated 
by something fresh and original — whether in 
plot, character, dialogue, or atmosphere — from 
the mediocre manuscripts that deserve nothing 
better than a printed rejection slip. Such 
originality does not mean, of course, a plot 
original in its entirety, for such plots were 
exhausted long ago. It means permutations 
and combinations of old material such as shall 
result in an impression of originality, especially 
at the close of the story — the place where, in 
short fiction, the real effect on the reader is 
almost invariably produced: in Maupassant's 
The Necklace, for example. 

Dr. Samuel Johnson declared, somewhat un- 
justly, that even Gulliver's Travels reveals no 
striking originality of plot; that, granted the 
dwarfs and giants of the first two parts, every- 
thing follows as a matter of course. There is, 
however, nothing very like Gulliver in literature, 
especially in its last two parts; and that is 
the main thing; that is, to speak colloquially, 

[2] 



Originality: Kinds and Methods 

"the answer." Nobody has succeeded in writ- 
ing very much like Jonathan Swift; and few 
have had the temerity to try. That unforget- 
table picture of those luckless immortals, the 
Struldbrugs — as vivid, says Leslie Stephen, 
as anything in Dante or Milton — is alone 
enough to attest Swift's profound originality 
in the realm of the creative imagination. 

The originality of Shakespeare evidently did 
not lie in invention of plots, which he "lifted" 
with a royal hand, but in creation of characters 
— where, unlike so many popular novelists and 
short-story writers of to-day, he never repeats 
himself — and in associative imagination, in 
comparison by metaphor and simile. Scott's 
title to eminence now rests almost entirely 
upon his "colossal creative power." Even Poe 
reveals inability to do more than a few things 
well — chiefly the horror story and the mystery 
tale. In the latter his invention and ingenuity 
are certainly noteworthy. 

Examples of essential originality in recent 
magazine stories by various authors might be 
multiplied; but a few will serve. John Taintor 
Foote's Opus 43, Number 6 x turns upon a 
famous pianist's pretence of ignorance of his 

1 Saturday Evening Post, Feb. 13, 1915. 

[3] 



The Contemporary Short Story 

art — a pretence skilfully maintained in order 
that he may enjoy the company of the young 
girl whom he loves, by taking piano lessons 
from her. The revelation at the close is deftly 
managed and the total effect is highly pleasing. 
Yet there is no attempt at a completely original 
plot. What is revealed is simply a new "twist" 
in an old situation: 

He moved across the room and stood uncertainly by 
the piano. 

"Lezzon?" he suggested timidly. 

Miss Hicks wet her lips with the tip of her tongue. She 
remained behind the table. 

"Where were you last night?" she inquired. 

The guilty Leopold grew scarlet. 

That restored her courage. He was not the old Scare- 
crow when he blushed — not the wonderful though mad 
being who turned a piano into a choir of heavenly voices. 
She came part way from behind the table. 

"Why have you been coming here?" she demanded. 

"Muzeek lessons," he offered weakly. 

Miss Hicks laughed him to scorn. She withdrew 
altogether from the protection of the table and confronted 
him. 

"Music lessons — your grandmother!" she said. "I 
was at Carnegie Hall last night. Now, why have you 
been coming here?" 

Leopold met her level glance and quailed to his marrow 
before it. He could deceive her no longer! Where was 
he to find words to tell her? It would have been a terri- 

[4] 



Originality: Kinds and Methods 

fying task in warm Hungarian. In his limping, con- 
temptible English it was sacrilege to think of it. He looked 
in dumb hopelessness about the poor, dear and now famil- 
iar room. He was about to be swept out of it forever. His 
eyes came at last to the piano. They widened slowly. 

"Seet down!" he said with an imploring gesture. 

She did so, wondering. Leopold sank to the piano 
bench and gathered a great sheaf of golden notes in his 
hands. 

Outside, the plumber's washing danced in the cold 
March wind. Over the court wall Miss Hicks could see 
a bare and lonely tree. Its forlorn background was a 
wind-swept tenement house. 

She had one desolate glimpse of all this — then it was 
gone. . . . Rich meadows, velvet green, stretched on 
and on before her. Her nostrils were filled with the 
breath of newborn violets. Brooks laughed. Birds sang. 
Butterflies flashed in the sunlight. A million lovers met 
and kissed — for Leopold had called on the magic of the 
Scandinavian gentleman. 

Miss Hicks was stirred by nameless longings, sweet 
beyond words or thought. They made her heart flutter 
and surge. They filled her throat and eyes. 

And now the sun went down and a yellow moon hung 
above the breathless trees. . . . Leopold had done it. 
Technically he was improvising on the theme of Opus 
43, Number 6. 

In reality he took Miss Hicks by the hand and led 
her to a moonlit glade. Then he whispered — whispered 
to her, while nightingales sang. He was no longer funny. 
. . . He was dear beyond all earthly things — her own! 
Her very own! 

[5] 



The Contemporary Short Story 

Suddenly black terror seized her — he was leaving — he 
was gone! . . . She looked up to see him standing by 
the piano, back in her own room. 

"Zat, deer von," he said, "ees vy I kom!" 

Miss Hicks raised one hand to her throat — tiny 
hammers were beating there. Her eyes were no longer 
frank and boyish. They had become deep pools of 
mystery. 

"I'm — glad — you — came!" she breathed, and 
flushed into a pink glory. 

Leopold discovered that his arms could do more than 
sweep from end to end of the keyboard. 

A similar new "twist" is visible in a powerful 
and moving tale by Henry C. Rowland, The 
Copy -Cat. 1 Here a man of unusual strength 
but feeble courage, who has sunk to the level 
of a beachcomber, suddenly gains the necessary 
fortitude to win a fist fight by seeing his re- 
cently acquired dog snarl defiance at a former 
% owner and their common enemy, a brutal sea 
captain. The animal, a thoroughbred, imparts 
the same quality to his new master. It is a 
vivid moment and the memory of it remains 
with the reader: 

A sudden weakness sapped their life from Bill's great 
limbs. His knees tottered, his arms hung limp. He 
looked hopelessly at Matey, and then his hanging jaw 

1 Saturday Evening Post, May 18, 1907. 
[6] 



Originality: Kinds and Methods 

came slowly up and his eyes grew fixed and staring, 
while the swaying legs slowly stiffened and the big hands 
closed. 

For the dog, his first panic over, had pulled himself 
together — as Bill had tried to do, and failed. Now, 
as the man's eyes fell upon the hound, they read in the 
bulging muscles, bristling hair, and bared, glistening 
fangs, not fear, but rage and a savage and stubborn de- 
fiance. Even as Bill watched, Matey sprang forward in 
a series of short, stiff -legged bounds, then stood with his 
strong neck rigid, his bristling tail straight out — and 
as the captain, awed for the moment by the ferocity of 
the animal, paused, Matey filled his deep chest and roared 
out a booming defiance at his master's foes and his ! 

A fierce glow of exultation set Bill's pulses throbbing. 
In a flash the mantle of fear fell from him. He had needed 
only the impulse, the example, the suggestion, and Matey 
had furnished it, and again, as his clarion war-cry bugled 
forth, Bill felt a thrilling impulse to voice his own defiance 
in a roar that should rock the lofty palms. . . . 

The attack, when it came, was swift and terrible. 
With the scream of a panther, Bill leaped upon his foe. 
He was met by a crashing blow which glanced from the 
side of his head and flung him to the sand, but almost as 
he struck he was up again and had closed with another 
rush. This time the captain's blow fell short, and the 
next moment Bill's great hands had found the captain's 
throat and the huge, bony fingers sank into it until the 
sailor's breath came in whistling gasps. In vain he tried 
to tear loose the terrible grip. The tense, bulging muscles 
were like the weather shrouds of a ship. He struck out 
wildly, dealing short, heavy blows, and presently these 

en 



The Contemporary Short Story 

had their effect, for Bill loosed his hold and sprang clear 
again. But the captain's head was reeling and there 
were black flashes before his eyes. He tottered slightly, 
gasping for breath, and then the huge, springing figure 
was upon him again, this time as a human flail which 
dealt crushing, devitalizing blows on head and face and 
body, until the captain, groping and striking blindly, 
reeled, tottered and fell. 

It is probable that he might have lost his life beneath 
the terrible chastisement had there not come a diversion. 
Seeing the champion overthrown, the rabble began to 
stir and mutter as if forming for a concerted attack. The 
movement caught Bill's lurid eye, and in a transfiguration 
of Olympic wrath he whipped up a stake which was lying 
near and descended upon them. Fortunately, his cudgel 
was of no great dimensions or the mortality might have 
mounted high. As it was, all escaped alive, the burden 
of i the punishment falling on the shipping agent, 
Mendoza. 

If in some one element a story is thus memo- 
rable through originality, that is enough. It 
will satisfy the reading public; and this means 
that it will satisfy the editor. A fiction maga- 
zine lives to please and must please in order to 
live. The editor merely feels the public pulse. 
" You can kill your magazine," says a prominent 
editor, "by one poor issue." If his circulation 
drops, he knows that his contributors' short 
stories have not shown enough freshness and 

[8] 



Originality: Kinds and Methods 

originality to induce readers to keep on buying 
his periodical at the news stands. The old- 
style millionaire's attitude, "the public be 
damned!" has nothing in common with the 
attitude of a successful editor. He must be a 
barometer of the changes in public taste and 
must alter his plans at the first symptom of 
those changes. 

In the best short stories of the day there is 
not only essential originality but also something 
more than brainless entertainment. There is a 
solid kernel of thought, often a big idea, back 
of the narrative. Such a short story is much 
more likely to deserve preservation in a volume 
than the "whipped syllabub" of the extremely 
light entertainer — the modern descendant of 
the Court Fool. A good short story must 
indeed be entertaining, but it may be something 
more without degenerating into a sermon or a 
treatise. In his early work, Henry James was 
entertaining, though in his later period he was an 
excellent example of how not to write fiction for 
popular consumption. Even what Matthew 
Arnold said of the Greeks is not inapplicable 
to the modern short story: 

Their theory and practice alike; the admirable treatise 
of Aristotle, and the unrivalled works of their poets, 

[9] 



The Contemporary Short Story 

exclaim with a thousand tongues — "All depends upon 
the subject; choose a fitting action, penetrate yourself 
with a feeling of its situations; this done, everything 
else will follow. 1 " 

Ward Muir's Sunrise 2 furnishes an almost 
extraordinary illustration of this doctrine of 
the subject. A beautiful girl in China who, 
having lived always underground, has never 
seen the sun, is taken out of her surroundings 
by her lover, at night, and the next morning 
beholds her first sunrise. She believes that she 
has looked upon the very face of God; and the 
shock causes her death. She dies happy, how- 
ever, though her lover is left distracted: 

I raised my eyes from Kima's kneeling figure, and 
saw — the sun. 

It was a burnished ball, emerging, as I looked, from a 
bed of fog. Moment by moment it grew more distinct, 
more and more fiery. The clouds were furling off from 
it like ornate curtains drawn from before an immense and 
inconceivable furnace. Its rays were drinking the vapors 
from the abysses, like steam. And then I saw the sun 
as an Eye. 

I stood, staring and dizzy; and beside me I heard a 
movement. Kima had risen from her knees, and was 
standing too, confronting the sun. Her body was strung 
taut and quivering. The fight, beating upon us ever 
brighter and brighter, was round her like a halo. 

1 Preface to Poems of 1853. 2 McClure's, Oct., 1914. 

[10] 



Originality: Kinds and Methods 

"What is this?" The words burst from her in a cry 
of awe. "What is this?" 

The sun swam clear of the clouds. Its full force rained 
upon us. And suddenly I heard Kima again: 

"J must look!" 

With a gesture at once sublime and despairing, she tore 
the bandage from her brow. 

I was paralyzed. I knew — knew — that Kima was 
lost to me; but I could not move. 

She gazed, entranced, for one tremendous moment, 
full into the face of the sun, then fell on her knees, and 
in an abandonment of adulation prostrated herself to the 
ground, her hands outspread in abject reverence. . . . 

At last, with an effort that was pain, I bent down and 
touched her. 

She paid no heed. 

I tried to raise her. 

She was inert. She slipped sideways in my hands, and 
I saw her face. 

It was the face of one who had beheld in the firmament 
a radiance unimaginable. Its dazzling and calamitous 
grandeur had stricken her to the earth, and stunned her 
in her adoration of its peerless majesty. She had lifted 
up her eyes to the glistering portent of the risen sun; 
she had rested them upon that stupefying blaze; she had 
seen the light ineffable. She had looked upon the sun's 
magnificence, and the luster of its flaming was too dire 
to be borne. In that unendurable splendor she had 
thought she saw God. And, in the terror and bliss of 
that revelation, her soul had been set free. 

Kima was dead! 



The Contemporary Short Story 

A strong contrast to this story, in subject, is 
to be seen in Freeman Tilden's satirical .tale, 
The Defective, 1 which turns upon a supposed 
defective's discovery that presumably sane peo- 
ple who were tango-mad, bridge-mad, and so 
forth, were in reality worse off mentally than 
he. In despair, he finally takes refuge again in 
the asylum from which he had been discharged 
as cured! The originality here lies quite as 
much in skilful treatment as in the subject. 
No outline can do justice to this uncommonly 
humorous tale. It has, in a high degree, both 
spontaneity and sophistication. 

Corra Harris' Justice 2 is a story whose orig- 
inality depends upon a powerful arraignment 
of the man-made equity of law-courts. A 
woman kills her husband, under circumstances 
such that she is acquitted — after being ably 
defended by a woman lawyer who intuitively 
divines all her wrongs and lays them before the 
jury. It is a suffrage story, and Mrs. Harris' 
thesis is: "Men are lawless, and always will be, 
to a certain limit which they determine them- 
selves, and our system of law, which is fictitious, 

1 Smart Set, March, 1914; reprinted in That Night, and Other 
Satires. 

2 Good Housekeeping, May, 1915. 

[12] 



Originality: Kinds and Methods 

is the only one they'll stand, because it is fic- 
titious!" 

Gertrude Atherton's unusual and thrilling 
character study, The Sacrificial Altar, 1 portrays 
an intellectual young novelist who is trying to 
inject some passion into his work. He fails to 
fall in love with a beautiful girl whom a friend 
has selected for him, but suddenly conceives 
the idea of stealing upon her in sleep, defying 
her scorn "for a few poignant moments" when 
she awakes, and then rushing forth, "repulsed 
and quite mad, to weep upon his floor until 
dawn!" When he sees her asleep, however, 
he does not feel any thrill. He is profoundly 
disappointed. Then he decides to give her a 
little fright. He places a pillow over her head, 
intending to release it quickly. But a madness 
of homicide seizes him. At last his emotional 
nature is aroused ! He holds the pillow over the 
face of his victim and represses her struggles. 
After she is dead, he calmly returns to his rooms 
— and starts a novel, the best that he has 
written. When he has finished it, he confesses 
his crime to an intimate friend, who will not 
believe him. So, in expiation, he commits sui- 
cide in the tomb of his ancestors. In outline, 

1 Harper's, August, 1916. 

Ci3] 



The Contemporary Short Story 

the tale does not sound plausible; but Mrs. 
Atherton's art in the complete story is fully 
adequate to her task. The originality lies in the 
psychology, in the portrayal of an eccentric but 
gifted artist nature seized by an obsession and 
hurried to tragic consequence. The depth and 
power of this story justify Mrs. Atherton's 
high place in American fiction. 

Kipling's tales are full of original ideas — 
William the Conqueror, The Man Who Would 
Be King, They, and so on almost ad libitum. A 
very suggestive title, which fully justifies itself, 
is William H. Hamby's A Big Idea in the Back- 
woods. 1 The story grows out of the solution, 
by an alert young man — aided by the advice 
and encouragement of a pretty girl — of the prob- 
lem of a bond issue authorized by three county 
court judges in Missouri but never paid for 
by the county. The promise of a railroad had 
been the lure — also a bribe to each of the three 
judges. The voters had declined to authorize 
the payment of either principal or interest, 
and the matter had dragged on for thirty years, 
the original amount, $400,000, having been 
increased by the interest to $1,500,000. The 
alert young man went to New York, induced 

1 Saturday Evening Post, Nov. 9, 1912. 
[14] 



Originality: Kinds and Methods 

the purchaser of the bonds to compromise for 
$400,000, then announced to the county an 
offer of $500,000, succeeded in winning enough 
votes at a special election — and thus made 
for himself the tidy sum of $100,000 minus 
expenses. It was good business both for him 
and for the voters, since he had been able to 
show that refusal to settle, during the period of 
thirty years, had cost the county a loss of $7,400,- 
000 in farm values and $1,600,000 in business 
values. "A county, like an individual," said 
the young financier, "cannot always go on not 
paying its debts. The only way we have done 
it so far is by keeping our assessments so low we 
barely have money to carry on in a poor way 
the county's business. The only way we can 
hope to avoid it in the future is by remaining 
so poor there is no revenue left for the courts 
to seize." So the voters bought back their 
self-respect. This is virtually a business article 
served up in entertaining fiction form. It is a 
type of story peculiarly characteristic of the 
Post and reflects our American absorption in 
commercial affairs. 

A very different sort of originality is shown 
in Joseph Conrad's notable mystery tale — for 
nearly everything that Mr. Conrad writes is 

[15] 



The Contemporary Short Story 

notable — The Shadow Line. 1 A young captain 
takes charge of his first vessel. His initial 
feeling of joy, in which he thinks of the ship as 
an enchanted princess waiting for him to deliver 
her, gives place to some slight foreboding when 
he learns that the previous skipper died in strange 
circumstances and that the crew seem to be 
under some spell of fear. The impression which 
the chief mate leaves upon him is powerfully 
indicated in the following passage: 

Suddenly I perceived that there was another man in 
the saloon, standing a little on one side and looking in- 
tently at me. The chief mate. I was vexed and discon- 
certed. His long red mustache determined the character 
of his physiognomy, which struck me as pugnacious. 

How long had he been looking at me, appraising me 
in my unguarded day-dreaming state? I could not have 
been in that cabin more than two minutes altogether. 
Say three. ... So he could not have been watching me 
more than a mere fraction of a minute, luckily. Still, I 
regretted the occurrence. But I showed nothing of it 
as I rose leisurely (it had to be leisurely) and greeted him 
with perfect friendliness. 

There was something reluctant and at the same time 
attentive in his bearing. His name was Burns. We 
left the saloon and went round the ship together. His 
face in the full light of day appeared very pale, meager, 
even haggard. Somehow I had a delicacy as to looking 
1 Metropolitan, Sept -Oct., 1916. 

[16] 



Originality: Kinds and Methods 

too often at him; his eyes, on the contrary, seemed 
fairly glued on my face. They were greenish and had 
not much expression. 

He answered all my questions readily enough, but my 
ear seemed to catch a tone of unwillingness. . . . 

There was a sort of earnestness in the situation which 
began to make me feel uncomfortable. 

In this story, atmosphere and style count 
for much. Mr. Conrad, like Poe, has an almost 
hypnotic effect on his reader. The impression 
produced by his most somber masterpieces re- 
calls Whitman's phrase, "the huge and thought- 
ful night." They are quite unlike those of any 
other living writer — stamped with personality 
and with literary quality of the highest order. 

Such stories are not turned off every week, 
even by an expert. A short-story writer is 
fortunate if he gets three or four really big ideas 
for a tale in a year; his other stories, if he writes, 
say, one a month, will have to depend more upon 
execution than upon conception. The ambitious 
young writer should remember that, particu- 
larly during his first three or four years of appren- 
ticeship, only his exceptional tales are likely to 
find editorial favor. Moreover, most authors 
under twenty-five years of age had better not 
be writing short stories at all — for magazine 

[17] 



The Contemporary Short Story 

publication. At one-and-twenty they can 
hardly have enough knowledge of life to produce 
worth-while fiction, can hardly have developed 
enough personality to be really individual — 
which, after all, is what it means to be original. 
Guy de Maupassant did not begin to publish 
until he was thirty. Kipling, an important 
exception, "broke into print" at twenty-three 
with Plain Tales from the Hills and, if one judges 
him by a single volume, reached his highest 
point as a short-story writer at twenty-six in 
Life's Handicap. Many a successful writer of 
short fiction — for example, Charles E. Van 
Loan — has not attained success until he was 
nearer forty than twenty. Mr. Van Loan was 
for many years a sporting editor on a news- 
paper, and his excellent baseball stories are an 
indirect result of that training. 

Just as many a minor poet is famous for a 
single poem, so many a short-story writer 
achieves fame by only a single tale. Edward 
Everett Hale's name is coupled with The Man 
Without a Country. In some cases this one story 
has perhaps contained the author's only truly 
original idea, his contribution to the none-too- 
extensive list of stories that are "different." 
Any reader who follows for several years every 

[18] 



Originality: Kinds and Methods 

issue of a highly popular magazine like the 
Saturday Evening Post will note that some 
writers appear frequently, others rarely, and 
still others only a single time. In the case 
of the authors who appear oftenest, a distinct 
falling-off in originality may every now and 
then be discerned. Irvin S. Cobb once started 
a series of mystery tales in the Post, with the 
scene in New York City, the general title of 
the series to be The Island of Adventure. The 
first two tales went very well; but the series 
was cut off in its prime. Mr. Cobb ran out 
of ideas. He himself humorously said that 
it was because he knew too much about New 
York. Inventiveness cannot be forced; and 
it is only a real genius, like Kipling in his 
prime, who can be both highly prolific and 
highly original. The unevenness of the Sher- 
lock Holmes tales is recognized by everybody 
save the blindest worshipper; and Arthur B. 
Reeve's ingenious tales of Craig Kennedy, 
"scientific detective," creak audibly now and 
then in their machinery. 

From the standpoint of immediate popular 
success, there is, of course, such a thing as too 
much originality. Even Kipling and Conan 
Doyle bombarded editors in vain for more than 

[19] 



The Contemporary Short Story 

one year. Their daring imagination produced 
stories so individual that editors hardly knew 
what to make of them. 1 The fact is that your 
editor is generally a timid creature. If he has 
convictions — and not always does he possess 
strong ones — he does not invariably have the 
courage of his convictions. He may be afflicted 
with what Saintsbury calls kainophobia — fear 
of the new and strange. But Kipling, with the 
persistence of genius, finally made editors and 
book publishers see that tales of India, if suffi- 
ciently well written, were not anathema to the 
multitude; and when, after disappointing ex- 
periences with other kinds of stories, Conan 
Doyle got A Study in Scarlet, the first of the 
Sherlock Holmes series, accepted he instantly 
had the public at his feet. "It's dogged as does 
it." In the Strand Magazine (October, 1915) 
a well-known author says of his early struggles : 

As some slight encouragement to those writers who 
find their days of success somewhat tardy in arriving, I 
might mention that I was writing for five years and longer 
before I ever earned a dollar with my pen. I wrote con- 
tinuously and determinedly, and though my stories came 
back to me with a promptness that was almost bewilder- 

1 "Every author, so far as he is great and at the same time 
original, has had the task of creating the taste by which he is to be 
enjoyed." — Wordsworth. 

[20] 



Originality: Kinds and Methods 

ing, I was not discouraged. I had made up my mind to 
be an author, and an author I knew I should become — 
one day. It is rather surprising that during the whole 
of those first five years I never received the faintest hint 
of encouragement. I just went doggedly ahead, and as 
soon as a manuscript came back I took it out of its wrap- 
per, threw the inevitable rejection slip into the waste- 
paper basket, re-enveloped the story, and sent it on its 
travels once more. During those years I must have 
written hundreds of stories which I should have been 
very glad to have sold for a few dollars each. After I 
had achieved success I disposed of all those stories for 
very excellent sums. So the years of rejection were not 
so unprofitable after all. 

The writer who becomes downcast after a 
few rejections should find out how his betters, 
like Conan Doyle, fared during their appren- 
ticeship. If he is sure he has talent, and not 
merely egotism (he can decide this by offering 
his manuscript for criticism to some one besides 
his intimate friends), let him persist; he will 
"arrive." But it is only occasionally that an 
author, as in the case of Myra Kelly, has her first 
story accepted by an important magazine. Even 
decided originality must be supplemented by 
technique. 

Anyone who peruses carefully Horace Fish's 
vivid story of conscience, The Inward Empire, 1 

1 Everybody's, February, 1914. 

[21] 



The Contemporary Short Story 

will perceive that its author possesses, for story 
purposes, too much imagination rather than too 
little. His task will evidently be to harness 
that imagination to editorial requirements. He 
is too fond of the psychic, of dwelling upon 
phantoms not dreamed of in the philosophy 
of the average magazine reader — who is not, 
after all, a very intellectual person. He or she 
is quite likely to be a shoe-clerk or a shopgirl 
who never heard of Ibsen but knows a good 
deal about those naughty serials by Robert W. 
Chambers. But even such a reader is likely 
to enjoy a splendidly original story of action 
and "the bright face of danger," such as Donn 
Byrne's Superdirigible "Gamma-I" 1 an imag- 
inary episode of the European War. Sugges- 
tive of Kipling in its brilliant handling of 
technicalities and its vivid choice of words, it 
shows what a daringly original young writer can 
do when kindled by a congenial theme. The 
commander of an English dirigible similar to 
the German Zeppelins decides to bombard 
the railway station, bridge, and forts of Mainz 
by night. The description of the trip and of 
the accomplishment of its object reveals an 
imagination and style which place the young 

1 Scribner's, August, 1916. 
[22] 



Originality: Kinds and Methods 

author far above an average magazine level. 
Its accuracy of detail and its astonishing vision 
of the possibilities of air warfare indicate talent 
which carries on a literary tradition and adds 
to it a distinct individuality and method. I 
quote a short passage which illustrates the 
author's fine use of comparisons: 

The navigator swung over the river. Four thousand 
feet below, the bridge showed over the black ribbon of 
the Rhine like a plank over a rivulet. Meriwell watched 
it with the eye of a cat ready to spring on a mouse. . . . 

"Heave on!" he yelled suddenly. 

The dirigible lifted violently like a canoe struck by a 
great wave. There was a loud whirring in the air as the 
bombs dropped downward. Meriwell felt his heart 
jump to his mouth. He peered over the edge breath- 
lessly, his hands gripping the rail with sudden fear. Me- 
chanically he opened his mouth to protect his ear-drums 
from the report, and as he did a vast wave of orange 
flame, like discolored sheet lightning, seemed to flick 
along the river. For a moment, soundless, the river rose 
in its bed as if struck by a mighty hand. The great 
stone bridge disappeared as if kicked away. 

"My God!" said Meriwell hoarsely, "my God!" 

Then suddenly noise struck him between the shoulder- 
blades, noise such as he could hardly believe possible — 
an infinitude of sound that rocked him like a crashing 
blow, a sound as of two planets meeting in mid-course, 
a gigantic forbidden thing, that only gods should make. 

"The bridge is gone," said Meriwell stupidly. 
[23] 



The Contemporary Short Story 

Among dozens of war stories read in manu- 
script and in current magazines by the present 
writer, this stands out as one of the two or 
three really powerful and memorable tales. It 
is the work of an artist rather than a mere 
journalist. Such young men may go far if they 
remain true to the traditions of Kipling and 
Stevenson and Hawthorne and Poe. 

Wait for an idea*. That is the starting point 
of any good story. And it is quite as likely to 
come during a walk to the postoffice, or in a 
wakeful hour at night, or over the dessert and 
cigars, or (in the case of the ladies) during the 
powdering of a nose, as after much pondering 
and much knitting of brows. Having snatched 
the idea out of the reluctant ether, jot it down at 
once. It is often fatal not to have a notebook 
at hand. Like time and tide, plots wait for no 
man. "Be good and you will be lonesome," 
reflected Mark Twain; and the chances are that 
he put it down in his little book — though I 
believe he never used it for a story. In his 
hands it would have made a hugely entertain- 
ing one. 

The peril of putting off is illustrated in the 
case of O. Henry. In a conversation with 
Freeman Tilden one day, he said, "Sometime 

[24] 



Originality: Kinds and Methods 

I'm going to write a story about a boy spoiled 
by good influences." He died before he carried 
out the resolution. So Mr. Tilden, borrowing 
merely this vague outline of a story idea, wrote 
it himself, 1 with a racy originality that would 
have delighted the heart of O. Henry. A young 
baseball hero whose mother supports him is 
induced by a fashionable lady "uplifter" of 
the village to take a regular job. What happens 
is tragi-comedy of the most entertaining sort. 
It is full of Mr. Tilden's personality and quite 
unlike anybody else. You may spell its orig- 
inality with a capital and not be far wrong. 
Its kernel of Yankee philosophy is as solid and 
convincing as a league baseball. I quote two 
passages that illustrate the character drawing 
and the technique of the close: 

Duff's father was a hard-working man. His step- 
father was a loafer. In some strange manner which the 
exponents of the theory of heredity will no doubt explain 
satisfactorily, Duff inherited from his stepfather rather 
than from his sire. At any rate, Duff was a born loafer. 
He was the kind of loafer that is prevented from working 
by sheer excess of vitality. He was the loafer premier 
of the neighborhood around Jackson Park. He was so 
utterly accomplished that, after a few misdirected at- 

1 The Good Influence: Smart Set; reprinted in That Night, and 
Other Satires. 

[25] 



The Contemporary Short Story 

tempts to seduce him from this occupation, the trades- 
men and employers ceased to dream of him as a laboring 
factor. 

Nature had fitted Duff to be captain of the Rusty 
Dippers; or, in fact, leader in any unproductive diversion. 

Nature had not thought of Duff Cassidy as a useful, 
moral, or intellectual citizen. 

In his sphere, Duff was a constant and consummate 
success. Unless you realize this, you will not understand 
his downfall, which began on the last day of May, 1911, 
with the appearance of Mrs. de Ruyter in the vicinage 
of Jackson Park. 

The Rusty Dippers and Shiny Cups still play ball 
every pleasant afternoon in Jackson Park, but Duff 
Cassidy is not there. I think he is working for a grocer 
over on Hastings Street; that is, working sometimes. 
He has all the primitive vices, and some others; but he 
has lost all the primitive virtues. He does not loaf any 
more; he does not know how; he does not dare to; he 
just sneaks a few minutes now and then furtively. He 
is ruined for life. 

I accuse nobody in particular of Duff's downfall. I 
suppose it may be attributed to chance. But I think it 
rather excessive, rather superfluous, for Mrs. de Ruyter 
to say, as she said when she returned from Europe and 
learned the facts: 

"It's really too bad, after all I did for that young man." 

The art of this story, like most good art in 
satire, is a little over the head of the average 

[26] 



Originality: Kinds and Methods 

subscriber to the Post; but it is a fair question 
whether there is not enough pure story interest, 
and humor as distinguished from satire, to hold 
even Mr. Average Subscriber. One of Mr. 
Tilden's stories, at any rate, was published in 
Collier's, 1 which has a circulation of more than 
800,000. As Mark Twain and O. Henry have 
proved, satire can be adapted to the average 
man; only, you must be cautious in handling 
it. Certainly you must beware of delicate irony. 
Defoe, who could write plainly enough when he 
wanted to — in Robinson Crusoe, for example 
— wrote a religious pamphlet, The Shortest 
Way with the Dissenters, so ironical that his 
political opponents took it for a serious argu- 
ment in their favor. They were so enraged when 
they discovered the joke that one of their influ- 
ential leaders had Defoe jailed for the offense. 
Some of the New York Nation's ironical 
editorials are nearly as difficult for the non- 
elect to understand. 

One of the highest kinds of originality — typi- 
fied, in the novel, by Jane Austen and Thack- 
eray and in the drama by many a realistic scene 
in Shakespeare — is that which gives an impres- 

1 Artistic Temperament, May 1, 1915; reprinted in That Night, and 
Other Satires. 

[27] 



The Contemporary Short Story 

sion of real life by (apparently) treating common 
things in a common way. It is one of the most 
difficult of tasks and, when well done, one of the 
surest indications of genius. Burns did it su- 
premely well in poetry. Crabbe, a contempo- 
rary, proved a dismal failure. His real life bores 
where that of Burns enchants. All ambitious 
story -writers would do well to read a good deal 
of Burns — and of various other modern poets 
likewise, such as Tennyson, Keats, Browning, 
and Wordsworth. It would stimulate their 
imagination and their ability to express emotion, 
as well as lend polish to their style; for good 
poetry is, as some critic has said, "the most 
perfect speech of man." Many a successful 
writer has found the reading, for an hour or 
so, of a congenial author who is a little better 
than himself a useful preliminary to immediate 
composition. To a mind that has not a "self- 
starter" it often supplies a serviceable crank. 
But everyone to his own method. David Gra- 
ham Phillips worked best standing at a high 
desk, like a bookkeeper; and he was highly 
individual in other respects. 

In a letter to the present writer Frank Goewey 
Jones, author of the Bigelow and Judkins stories 
in McClure's, modestly said that he couldn't 

[28] 



Originality: Kinds and Methods 

just see why editors wanted his tales, for tl 
seemed to hini to treat ordinary things in a 
very ordinary way. Ah! that is one of the 
great secrets of good writing — not to be too 
pretentious, not to attempt "fine writing" 
and ultra-romantic atmosphere. He who "sees 
life steadily and sees it whole" may tell what 
he sees, in very simple language, yet with pro- 
found effect. Something of this Mr. Jones 
has accomplished in his true-to-life stories of 
the stenographer, the office boy, and the self- 
important, irascible employer. Show us life 
as it is, people as they are, and you are always 
original; for no section of this absorbing human 
life of ours is quite like any other. When a 
writer stiffens into conventionalities, he is no 
longer rendering his own view of life. He 
has become a decadent. But so long as he 
avoids it — as Charles E. Van Loan and Booth 
Tarkington avoid it — editors will wear a path 
to his door. You will always find at least two 
or three claiming the honor of having first dis- 
covered an author who afterward attained fame 
— O. Henry, for example. 

Myra Kelly's stories of school children on 
New York's East Side have this loving fidelity 
to life, this treating common things in a com- 

[29] 



The Contemporary Short Story 

mon way. There is selection, of course, and 
heightening of certain effects; but the impres- 
sion is a jtrue one. Really original realism is 
never purely photographic. Miss Kelly left 
out a good many uninteresting items in her 
daily routine; but she proved once for all that 
a teacher's life is not necessarily humdrum — 
that there are stories everywhere, crying to be 
written or waiting patiently for the seeing eye 
to observe them. 

One of the most imaginative of English poets 
says: 

"Life, like a dome of many-colored glass, 
Stains the white radiance of eternity.' ' 

And no one sees things uncolored by his own 
brain. If, conventionalized by school and col- 
lege and by imitation of famous writers, the 
young story-teller loses the colors of his own vi- 
sion of life, he loses originality. It is the strong 
man like Kipling who makes us revise our little 
pedantic code of literary rules to admit him to 
the circle of acknowledged masters of narration. 
Originality is a man asserting himself — com- 
pletely, clearly, and convincingly. But it is 
something quite different from mere egotism, 
of which amateurs who send manuscripts to 
Harper's or the Saturday Evening Post often have 

[30] 



Originality: Kinds and Methods 

more than enough. Having read, for certain 
magazines, a good many stories and the uncon- 
sciously humorous letters that accompany them, 
the present writer is prepared to support his 
assertion by documentary evidence. It is aston- 
ishing how many persons think it must be easy 
to write a story for the magazines, regardless 
of special training or special ability. A good 
ditch-digger is more to be honored than a poor 
story-writer. But persistence is a great virtue; 
and it must be confessed that sometimes a most 
unpromising tadpole later develops an extraor- 
dinary jump. 

Originality, at any rate, is not mere vaude- 
ville cleverness, of which men capable of better 
things, like Irvin S. Cobb and Samuel G. Blythe, 
have given the public an unconscionable dose. 
Mr. Cobb in his war articles, however, has 
analyzed something more important than "tum- 
mies" and seasickness. Moreover, in his short 
stories he has never exhibited the straining 
after theatrical effect in phraseology which 
marks those anatomical articles. The difference 
between forced-draft humor of this sort and 
real art may be seen if one turns to the remark- 
able short stories of W. W. Jacobs. These 
have not only originality of the most indubitable 

[31] 



The Contemporary Short Story 

kind but also a deftness of method and of char- 
acterizing phrase, an economy of means and a 
compactness of effect that put to shame the 
windy discursiveness of some of our American 
"journalese." Mr. Jacobs reveals a trait of a 
character in a single stroke; and the whole 
character in an astonishingly small number 
of such strokes. Mr. George Horace Lorimer, 
editor of the Saturday Evening Post, has an 
admiration for W. W. Jacobs which some of his 
"star" contributors might well emulate. 

It is to be feared that something of this mere 
cleverness is due to the influence of O. Henry. 
In too many of his tales he stands emphatically 
for feats of verbal and structural legerdemain, 
startlingly clever phraseology, akin to keeping 
a dozen glass balls in the air simultaneously. 
He is up to date in slang and colloquialisms; 
the mark of the ultra-modern is upon him — 
or was, at the time of his death. And his in- 
genuity is indeed bewildering. But such a 
method of attaining originality is as showy and 
vulgar as a second-grade chorus girl. Here is 
a fairly typical passage: 

I suppose you know all about the stage and stage peo- 
ple. You've been touched with and by actors, and you 
read the newspaper criticisms and the jokes in the week- 

[32] 



Originality: Kinds and Methods 

lies about the Rialto and the chorus girls and the long- 
haired tragedians. And I suppose that a condensed 
list of your ideas about the mysterious stageland would 
boil down to something like this: 

Leading ladies have five husbands, paste diamonds, 
and figures no better than your own (madam) if they 
weren't padded. Chorus girls are inseparable from per- 
oxide, Panhards and Pittsburgh. All shows walk back 
to New York on tan oxford and railroad ties. 1 

We still have too much admiration for the 
juggler and trickster of literature. A short- 
story writer who can keep up a continuous 
vaudeville performance of astonishing feats 
often attains temporary popularity — just as 
does the horseplay of one Charles Chaplin in the 
"movies." But in order to retain the respect 
of his public he must have something more 
than the virtues of the mountebank; he must 
have nature and sincerity. And O. Henry 
generally had these. His faults of style do not 
obscure his searching analysis of human nature. 
Some of his little excerpts from life have a vivid- 
ness and truth that call for the most cordial 
admiration. They hold the mirror up to nature. 

The moment, however, that a writer without 
O. Henry's genius attempts to rival his eccen- 
tricities — for his virtues are inimitable — he 

1 Strictly Business. Doubleday, Page & Co. 

[33] 



The Contemporary Short Story 

is likely to come to grief. A whole series of 
such imitations, by a fairly well-known author, 
came under the eye of the present writer in 
manuscript. They possessed a certain sparkle, 
but their attempt to convey the atmosphere of 
the Broadway "white-light district" just es- 
caped success, because they were obviously 
"manufactured." They did not ring true. 
One's criticism was, instinctively: "How hard 
he is trying to be clever!" But all his taking 
of thought failed to add one cubit to his literary 
stature. Moral: Don't imitate O. Henry — or 
anybody else. 

The best advice ever given to a short-story 
writer was probably that which one great 
Frenchman, Flaubert, gave to another who 
was destined to become equally great, Guy 
de Maupassant: 

Everything which one desires to express must be 
looked at with sufficient attention, and during a suffi- 
ciently long time, to discover in it some aspect which no 
one has as yet seen or described. In everything there 
is still some spot unexplored, because we are accustomed 
only to use our eyes with the recollection of what others 
before us have thought on the subject which we contemplate. 
The smallest object contains something unknown. Find 
it. To describe a fire that flames, and a tree on the 
plain, look, keep looking, at that flame and that tree 

E34] 



Originality: Kinds and Methods 

until in your eyes they have lost all resemblance to any 
other tree or any other fire. 

This is the way to become original. . . . 

When you pass a grocer seated at his shop door, a 
janitor smoking his pipe, a stand of hackney coaches, 
show me that grocer and that janitor — their attitude, 
their whole physical appearance — embracing likewise, 
as indicated by the skilfulness of the picture, their whole 
moral nature; so that I cannot confound them with any 
other grocer or any other janitor. Make me see, in one 
word, that a certain cab horse does not resemble the 
fifty others that follow or precede it. 

He who has learned to individualize in this 
fashion has exhibited not only talent but also a 
capacity for hard work. The apprenticeship 
of the average short-story writer who attains 
success is a long one — two or three years at 
best. During this period, however, he may sell 
a number of stories to minor magazines whose 
circulation and rate of payment are small. It 
is often quite possible to earn while you learn. 
A certain author's barren period of five years 
is not typical — unless one begins, as he perhaps 
did, at an extremely early age. There are 
more than seventy American periodicals that 
print fiction; and most of them are eagerly 
looking for new writers. In such conditions 
no real talent can long remain undiscovered. 

[35] 



The Contemporary Short Story 

In the fiction world of to-day there are no mute, 
inglorious Kiplings. Everybody has a chance. 
In most magazine offices all manuscripts are 
read carefully enough to make sure that nothing 
of merit is sent back without a word of encour- 
agement. It must be remembered, however, 
that not even an editor can squeeze more than 
twenty-four hours out of a day; and he must 
therefore devote his attention to promising ma- 
terial only. After you have had a few stories 
printed, you will generally find it easy to get 
an interview with almost any editor and to se- 
cure suggestions from him — particularly as to 
the policies of his own magazine. 

It is astonishing, by the way, that the same 
public which demands originality in the short 
story and the novel should tolerate the trite 
and commonplace melodrama served up to it 
in motion pictures. Better films are gradually 
being offered — some at regular theater prices 
— but so far the "movies" are little more than 
a return to the infancy of the English drama 
in the Middle Ages. There is the same crude 
plot, the same crude horseplay. A good short- 
story writer may easily ruin his inventiveness 
and technique by devoting himself to writing 
motion-picture scenarios for a few months. 

[36] 



Originality: Kinds and Methods 

The present writer knows of one such case. 
On the other hand, the more novels and short 
stories — provided they are highly original — 
are turned into motion pictures, the better for 
the future of this still somewhat doubtful field. 
Often the originality of a short-story writer 
is shown by his choice of a fit and striking title. 
In many cases, however, it is the editor who, 
in newspaper fashion, hits upon the best "head- 
line" to attract his public. The finest stories 
do not need ultra-clever or pretentious titles — 
simply something that is a true index to the 
theme and that awakens some curiosity. The 
Red-Headed League, one of the Sherlock Holmes 
tales, fulfils these requirements; and so does its 
companion, The Adventure of the Speckled Band, 
a remarkably dramatic and original piece of 
craftsmanship. The Three Godfathers, by Peter 
B. Kyne, is simple and satisfying. Edna Fer- 
ber's amusing and penetrating story of hotel 
atmosphere in a large city, The Hooker '-up-the- 
Back, is unusually well introduced by its title. 
So also is The Queen of the Graveyard Ghouls, 
by Barry Benefield, a humorous-sentimental 
love tale which found a place in The Ladies 9 
Home Journal. Fannie Hurst's "T. £.," a 
happy-ending story of a young girl threatened 

[37] 



The Contemporary Short Story 

with tuberculosis, is striking but of questionable 
drawing power. Attempts at mere cleverness 
in titles are found more frequently in the minor 
magazines, where it sometimes seems necessary 
to bolster up a mediocre tale by a "snappy" 
title. It is related, by the way, that a book 
publisher once asked an author to write a 
"bright, snappy life of Jesus!" The volume, 
however, was never penned. 

Kipling often manifests real genius in a title. 
They is perhaps too vague, but at any rate it 
provokes curiosity. So also does .007. The 
Brushwood Boy is highly original. The Man 
Who Would Be King is less striking but entirely 
adequate. In articles, quite as much as in fic- 
tion, moreover, the good title commends itself. 
Compare, for example, Permanent Soil Fertility 
with The Farm That Won't Wear Out Titles 
are much more journalistic nowadays than in 
the period of Hawthorne and Poe. A sensa- 
tion-loving editor would be pretty sure to change 
Rappaccini's Daughter to something like The 
Poisoner's Daughter. But of course the best 
title in the world can do no more than introduce 
a story. It must make its way on sheer merit. 
The somewhat puerile fashion of prefacing 
a tale by an editorial note of explanation and 

[38] 



Originality: Kinds and Methods 

praise — aptly called a "blurb" by Gelett 
Burgess — has little to recommend it. It in- 
sults the intelligence of the better class of readers 
and is of doubtful aid even to the other class. 

The man who really has something to say — 
this is the man for whom the world is always 
looking, whether in short story, novel, article, 
sermon, or social prophecy. Commonplace folk 
need the few pioneers to do their thinking and 
inventing for them. It may be Kipling in 
fiction, Edison in electricity, Darwin in evolu- 
tion; but in all cases it is originality which is 
honored; it is the man of imagination who 
leads the van — "and by the vision splendid 
is on his way attended." 

EXERCISES 

1. Make an outline of the plot of Conan Doyle's The 
Red-Headed League (in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes) 
in order to study the original elements in it. Are there 
any improbabilities in this story? In The Adventure of 
the Speckled Band? Are these improbabilities, if present, 
likely to affect the enjoyment of the average reader? 

2. Kipling's They (in Traffics and Discoveries) is highly 
original in many respects. It is a good test of a student's 
ability to understand in full an obscure but masterly 
story. Write such an outline as will show what the tale 
means to you. Mention any details or main elements 

[39] 



The Contemporary Short Story 

which you fail to comprehend. Why would the Saturday 
Evening Post probably refuse such a story? 

3. The cleverness of Stockton's The Lady, or the Tiger? 
(in Sherman's A Booh of Short Stories) lies chiefly in the 
problematic ending. Set down the reasons for each of 
the two solutions proposed. Are we told enough about 
the character of the princess to enable us to guess what 
she would probably do? Is a problem-close used in any 
contemporary magazine stories which you have read? 

4. Hawthorne's The Birthmark (in Jessup and Can- 
by 's The Book of the Short Story) is original and pleasing; 
but it is in several respects old-fashioned. Show why 
it is unlike most present-day stories. Is the didactic 
element strong in modern magazine stories? What mag- 
azines favor it, if any? Compare The Birthmark with 
Kipling's Without Benefit of Clergy (in The Book of the 
Short Story) with respect to didacticism. 

5. Dickens' A Christmas Carol (in Cody's The World's 
Greatest Short Stories) evidently did not gain its success 
by originality. Write a brief appreciation of this story 
which will show its elements of popular appeal. What 
is generally required in a Christmas story which is not 
so often present in others? Some magazines no longer 
print typical "Christmas stories," the editors declaring 
that their sophisticated readers find such tales too ele- 
mentary. 

6. Mary Wilkins-Freeman's The Revolt of "Mother" 
(in Mikels' Short Stories for High Schools) is an example 
of an uneventful life lighted up for a moment by an 
unusual act of daring. Test this for plausibility and 

[40] 



Originality: Kinds and Methods 

compare it with The Adventure of the Speckled Band, 
both in this respect and in any others which occur to you. 

7. Katharine Fullerton Gerould's Vain Oblations (in 
the volume bearing that title) has much more plot and 
much more originality of plot than most of her stories. 
Outline this and compare it with a similar outline of any 
other tale from this volume. Generally Mrs. Gerould 
depends too much upon subtle and complex delineation 
of character without any strong plot effect. Hence her 
stories do not appear in the magazines of largest circula- 
tion, which demand that something shall happen. Her 
originality lies mainly in her psychology. She is not a 
good model for young writers who wish to sell stories to 
the average magazine. 

8. Point out, among ten stories in current periodicals, 
the one that you consider most original, and tell why. 
Give some indication of the plot of the one that seems 
least original. 

9. In O'Brien's The Best Short Stories of 1915, which 
tales are founded on a really worth-while idea? And 
what, in each case, is the idea? Are there any stories in 
this volume which seem to rely upon skilful treatment 
rather than upon any genuine originality of subject? 
(Mr. O'Brien's selections, for various reasons, do not 
constitute a list of the best short fiction of 1915; but the 
volume is useful, nevertheless.) 

10. Briefly describe, in H. G. Wells' volume, Thirty 
Strange Stories, three that are too daringly original to be 
acceptable to a periodical of large circulation, whose 
readers are for the most part commonplace people. (You 



The Contemporary Short Story 

can find, also, one or two such tales in almost any of 
Kipling's volumes.) 

11. Find one story in a current magazine which shows 
the vaudeville cleverness popularized by O. Henry — a 
sort of vulgar "smartness" which, in his case, was gen- 
erally redeemed by worthier qualities. Look first in the 
periodicals of largest circulation. 

12. Find five story-titles in Scribner's, the Saturday 
Evening Post, the Metropolitan, or other magazines, which 
seem to you to show unusual skill and fitness; and tell 
why. 

13. Which of the following stories contains the most 
original character? The most original plot? The most 
unusual setting? And which seems to you the best story? 
— Kipling's The Man Who Would Be King, Balzac's A 
Passion in the Desert, Poe's The Masque of the Red Death, 
Hawthorne's The Minister's Black Veil, Stevenson's Will 
o' the Mill, Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness. 

14. Compare the stories in an issue of Harper's with 
those in an issue of the All-Story Weekly with respect to 
the kind of originality shown. 

15. Among recent magazine tales which you have 
read, describe one that best illustrates Flaubert's state- 
ment: "The smallest object contains something 
unknown." (Many seemingly trivial incidents become 
important when handled by a real artist.) 



[42] 



CHAPTER II 

COMMON FAULTS 

It is not the object of a really good novelist, nor does 
it come within the legitimate means of high art in any 
department to produce an actual illusion. ... A 
novelist is not only justified in writing so as to prove 
that his work is fictitious, but he almost necessarily 
hampers himself, to the prejudice of his work, if he 
imposes upon himself the condition that his book shall 
be capable of being mistaken for a genuine narrative. 
— Leslie Stephen, Hours in a Library. 

The most frequent criticism, 1 probably, that 
an editor has to pass upon a short story other- 
wise good is, "Unconvincing." A tale may 
be unconvincing either in total effect or in a 
particular feature or features — in which case 
it is possible to revise it and make it acceptable, 
make it one of the short stories that sell. Young 
writers would be surprised to learn in how many 
instances famous authors thus alter a story in 
accordance with an editor's suggestion. In 
one case an admirable story needed, and received, 

1 One of the commonest and most serious faults in short-story writing, 
the weak ending, is treated in the chapter on structure. See pages 103- 
106. 

[43] 



The Contemporary Short Story 

a slight revision because of a courtroom scene 
and verdict. No jury with a conscience would 
have been likely to let even a fine fellow — such 
as the hero was — off scot-free on the purely 
extra-legal grounds which the author described. 
We may have sympathy with a hero who kills 
a villain, but in a law court we expect justice. 
This was an unusually fine magazine story and, 
when revised, made a profound impression. 
Courtesy to the writer forbids giving its title; 
but it may be said that the author, a woman, 
is in general an admirable craftsman. 

Maupassant's familiar tale, The String, is 
convincing because the central character, though 
he tells the truth about the bit of string that he 
picked up, is known to be tricky. Hence he is 
believed to have picked up and concealed a 
pocketbook that had been lost. He suffers 
unjustly in this instance, but suffers because 
of his previous acts. Maupassant was too 
good a psychologist to make a mistake in prob- 
ability of motive or action. 

In another story that came to the present 
writer in manuscript, the fault lay In too open 
a use of the supernatural. A bearskin or lion- 
skin rug — memory refuses to say which — sud- 
denly becomes animate and threatens the life 

[44] 



Common Faults 

of the hunter who had long since added it to his 
collection. Though skilfully told, by an author 
who had many published tales to his credit, 
this proved too much for the editor to swallow. 
Yet Kipling's Wireless, 1 in which the spirit 
of Keats enters into a modern poet and directs 
his pen, was not adjudged a failure. The 
only workable test of the supernatural is this: 
Does it convince the reader's imagination mo- 
mentarily? Does it throw his reason into a 
hypnotic slumber? H. G. Wells does it in most 
of the tales in his volume, Thirty Strange Stories; 
but the average story writer should keep away 
from the supernatural. It is not a popular 
magazine topic; it presents, therefore, a handi- 
cap that only great imaginative power and 
vividness of expression can overcome. 

When we say, then, that a story is unconvinc- 
ing we consciously or unconsciously pass a ver- 
dict that things would not happen so in real life; 
or that, granted extraordinary circumstances, 
a man would not act so in those circum- 
stances. A genuinely inspiring story, however, 
is always a trifle better than real life. Its 
people are perhaps kinder and more disinter- 
ested. They are like Turner's sunsets. "But, 

1 In Traffics and Discoveries. 

[45] 



The Contemporary Short Story 

Mr. Turner," said an old lady as she stood 
before one of his famous canvases, "I never 
saw such a sunset." "Ah! my dear madam," 
replied the painter, "but don't you wish you 
could!" The success of optimistic tales, tales 
designed simply to make people happier, shows 
the wisdom of Turner's defense. The Peggy- 
Mary stories in Good Housekeeping \ by Kay 
Cleaver Strahan, which have since been col- 
lected in book form, show how a new author 
may emerge into some prominence by thus 
spreading happiness through a delightful young 
heroine. A good many people are always 
willing to be deceived — if this be the right word 
— into thinking for the moment that life is a 
rose-garden idyl 1 rather than a prosaic piece 
of business. 

"People wouldn't act so in real life." One 
of the commonest reasons for this criticism, 
passed by many a reader of an essentially uncon- 
vincing tale, is that amateur writers and even 
seasoned professionals are too fond of using 
"plot-ridden characters," people who are made 
to act unnaturally because the ingeniously 
planned outcome of the plot demands it. The 

1 See Margaret Widdemer's The Rose-Garden Husband. It is an ex- 
cellent example of this theory applied to a short novel. 

[46] 



Common Faults 

plays of Beaumont and Fletcher are full of such 
characters; but only in the final reconciliation 
scene of certain comedies will you detect an 
example in Shakespeare. It is always bad 
art to construct a plot which forces the charac- 
ters to act with absurd unnaturalness. A writer 
may commit this crime in the second or third 
degree and be pardoned by an indulgent public 
for his virtues of inventiveness and skilful 
structure; but he should not often strain the 
credulity of his readers. Anna Katharine Green 
often sins in this respect in her detective stories, 
which are therefore markedly inferior to the 
short mystery tales of Melville Davisson Post, 
or G. K. Chesterton, or Sir Arthur Conan 
Doyle. 

A second common fault, briefly mentioned 
in the opening chapter, is a threadbare plot 
or situation. No one who lacks inventiveness 
can go very far in short-story writing. One 
young woman submitted to the present writer 
at least half a dozen successive stories all of 
which, from the standpoint of technique, were 
well written but all hopelessly familiar to the 
average reader — familiar not merely in one 
feature or element but in their entirety. It 
may be that this was due to lack of wide reading 

[47] 



The Contemporary Short Story 

on her part. At any rate, she failed to inject 
any of her own individuality into her work. 

Another young woman ingenuously confessed 
that she had read very few short stories. What 
with social activities, et cetera, she had never 
found time ! Yet she had time — and temerity 
— to attempt the writing of several tales. 
Needless to say, they were not successful. This 
airy assumption that story writing requires no 
special preparation or hard work is responsible 
for many worthless manuscripts submitted daily 
to fiction magazines. Some candidates for a place 
in a prominent periodical, for example, were 
not even aware that a manuscript should never 
be sent rolled; and others apparently had never 
discovered the existence of that useful inven- 
tion, the typewriter. The fact that amateur 
writers should submit such manuscripts to any 
magazine illustrates once more that hope 
springs eternal. 

Even a trained and successful story writer 
not infrequently falls back into the rut of the 
too familiar plot. One of those praised in the 
previous chapter for originality wasted some 
beautifully finished work on such a plot. A rich 
young man and a rich young girl chanced upon 
a poor young couple in a grove whither all had 

[48] 



Common Faults 

gone on a nutting expedition. The contents of 
the two lunch baskets were shared and an 
atmosphere of genuine democracy prevailed. 
Then two rough characters strolled by, insulted 
the two ladies, and were promptly pummeled 
by the escorts. All very pretty and very whole- 
some; but altogether too reminiscent. There 
were admirable passages, yet as a whole it 
was not a "different" tale. And friendly editors 
hardened their hearts and rejected it. The 
present writer is not going to be indiscreet 
enough, however, to mention the title of the 
story or the name of the author; for some day, 
despite its familiar plot, it may be printed. 

Whatever this story lacked, it had charm. 
The worst of all story faults is dullness. The 
recipe for perfect dullness is difficult to state, 
since tastes differ — and especially from one 
generation to another. Books that we now 
pronounce insufferably boresome were once 
pretty widely read. Even Defoe is now known 
almost entirely by Robinson Crusoe, and Bunyan 
by Pilgrim's Progress. Any one who will take 
the trouble to look into a history of English 
literature, however, will discover that these 
two men composed various other works. 

Longueurs is the French for dullness. 
[49] 



The Contemporary Short Story 

Although, as Byron observed, we haven't the 
word, 

"We have the thing: 
An epic from Bob Southey every spring." 

We still have the thing — in some of Henry 
James' later work, and in at least a few of the 
short stories printed in thirty-five-cent maga- 
zines. This dullness most commonly arises 
from total lack of action. After perusing two 
or three thousand words of a story in which 
nothing happens or seems likely ever to happen, 
the average reader throws the offending periodi- 
cal into the farthest corner and proceeds to ex- 
press a vigorous opinion of the editor as well as 
of the writer. Which is as it should be. A 
story should have story interest. Shakespeare, 
who knew his audience so well, knew this; and in 
his middle and later periods he fairly crowded 
his plays with action. This was what the 
average person wanted; and it is what the aver- 
age person wants to-day. Let there be no mis- 
take about that. You couldn't make a volume 
equal in interest to Lamb's Tales from Shake- 
speare out of Ben Jonson's plots. There is not 
enough story in them, not enough complica- 
tions in the plot. There is not enough story 
in some of the short tales of Katharine Fullerton 

[50] 



Common Faults 

Gerould, a writer much praised by a small cult. 
The truth is that Mrs. Gerould sometimes loses 
her way in a thicket of psychology and a thicket 
of phrase — but not always. Probably she 
could get into the fifteen-cent magazines if she 
wished, instead of merely Harper's, Scribner's 
and the Century; for the American woman is, 
as foreigners have observed, a very adaptable 
creature. 

When one says that story interest is necessary, 
it must not be assumed that a story which pos- 
sesses action is necessarily a slam-bang, breath- 
less production — or what is known in the trade 
as a "red-shirt" story. The true recipe can 
hardly be better stated than in Hamlet's famous 
advice to the players: 

Do not saw the air too much with your hand, thus, 
but use all gently; for in the very torrent, tempest, and, 
as I may say, whirlwind of passion, you must acquire and 
beget a temperance that may give it smoothness. ... 
Be not too tame, neither, but let your own discretion be 
your tutor. Suit the action to the word, the word to the 
action; with this special observance, that you o'erstep 
not the modesty [i.e., moderation] of nature. 

This advice needs a little adaptation in order 
to apply to the short story; but the general 
purport is clear enough. Action in narrative 

[51] 



The Contemporary Short Story 

does not mean melodrama or the rapidity of 
a motion-picture film. It simply means that 
something interesting must happen. 

You may open your tale with a little essay, 
as several good writers sometimes do, but you 
must then proceed to business. Some stories 
are nearly all essay; and their authors ought 
to be writing essays rather than fiction. Haw- 
thorne's The Great Stone Face, admirable as it 
is, betrays rather too much of the sermon. A 
man must be a born story-teller rather than a 
manufactured one, in order to portray action 
naturally, easily, and abundantly. Of such was 
Chaucer in verse; and of such was Stevenson 
in prose, as evidenced by the title given to 
him by the Samoan islanders — tusitala, "the 
teller of tales." To them he told his stories 
orally, after the good old Homeric fashion; 
and they recognized in him the true narrative 
genius. 

A fourth common fault in story-writing is 
lack of acquaintance with one's material — 
with the locality, for example, or the habits and 
characteristics of the people. This fault may 
be dismissed briefly, for it should hardly be 
necessary to warn writers with honesty of pur- 
pose not to treat things of which they are partly 

[52] 



Common Faults 

or wholly ignorant. So well known a short 
story writer as Edna Ferber, however, attempts 
fields unfamiliar to her in Broadway to Buenos 
Aires l and with not very happy results. The 
indefatigable Emma McChesney takes a business 
trip to South America; but the local color of 
that continent seems to have been very imper- 
fectly assimilated by the author. A man who 
has been there informs me that, contrary to Miss 
Ferber's belief, it is Portuguese, not Spanish, 
which is chiefly spoken in Rio Janeiro. The 
call for a South American story tempted Miss 
Ferber to write of something which was partly 
or largely outside of her own experience. The 
moment one compares Broadway to Buenos 
Aires with Beatrice Grimshaw's stories of the 
South Seas, one can perceive the richness of 
local color in the latter and the intimate famil- 
iarity of Miss Grimshaw with all her materials 
— a familiarity which Miss Ferber also exhibits 
in her best tales of American business, such as 
Roast Beef Medium 2 (the title story of a volume). 
This familiarity is what has given vogue to many 
a writer who has confined himself to a small 
section of country. Joel Chandler Harris made 

1 In Emma McChesney & Co. 

2 First published in the American Magazine, Dec., 1911. 

[53] 



The Contemporary Short Story 

Georgia his canvas; Thomas Nelson Page, 
Virginia; George W. Cable, Louisiana; Mary 
Wilkins, New England; and H. C. Bunner, 
Richard Harding Davis, and O. Henry are per- 
haps most famous for their tales of New York 
City. 

Some tales of high society by young persons 
— and a few older ones — who have evidently 
never moved in that society illustrate by various 
ingenuous betrayals how perilous it is for an 
author to step outside his own experience. 
Some little faux pas at a critical moment is 
almost certain to reveal him to those who really 
know the atmosphere which he pretends to know. 
Honesty and sincerity are at the bottom of all 
good literary work. 

Writers of short stories who are ambitious 
to get into good magazines should remember, 
further, that certain subjects are in themselves 
undesirable, regardless of the merits of the story. 
Very few periodicals admit anything sordid or 
depressing. An excellent tale of a New York 
gunman, by an author who knew his atmosphere 
well, proved unacceptable because few readers 
care to become acquainted with anyone so 
revolting as a professional gunman — the 
Becker case to the contrary notwithstanding. 

[54] 



Common Faults 

Sordid murder cases seem to be much more 
popular in the newspapers than in magazine 
fiction. 

With the permission of the author, Thomas 
Grant Springer, I quote a passage near the 
opening of the story mentioned, The Gun, and 
another near the close: 

Pug Bradley was a killer, but there were no notches 
on his gun. Pug was born on the East Side, not in the 
West, and the record of his victims was an open book to 
the neighborhood, though the police blotter gave him no 
positive mention. Murder was part of his day's, or 
rather his night's work, for Pug was a nocturnal animal, 
brother of the feline prowlers of the city, as vicious if not 
as noisy. His pride in his achievements was a quiet one 
— not, however, from any sense of modesty — and 
though his fame was circulated in awed whispers, he 
looked with disfavor on a press agent. He was known 
and feared for what he was and gloried in his reputation. 
At certain Second Avenue cafes the slinking waiters slid 
up to the cashier with his unpaid checks which the house 
always stood for. At various corner cigar stands the 
score for his cigarettes was wiped secretly from the slate 
without comment. 

Pug made his way straight to the Cosmopolitan Cafe. 
He took a table across the room where he could watch 
the door of the dressing room, and ordered a meal. The 
place was comfortably filled and the cabaret was in full 
swing. Mame was nowhere in sight, but the reserved 

[55] 



The Contemporary Short Story 

table had a chair leaned against it. Pug noticed this 
with dissatisfaction. He shifted his position slightly so 
as to bring the vacant chair into a straight line with him 
and, when his order appeared, attacked it with relish. 

Once or twice during his meal he caught sight of Mame 
hovering about the dressing room door, evidently waiting. 
As Pug pushed back his plate and lit a cigarette, Billy 
the Bloke turned back the chair and, sitting down, glanced 
toward the dressing room door. In an instant Pug's 
cigarette dropped from his fingers. He shot a specu- 
lative glance about the room and noted the quickest 
way of retreat toward the street door. 

His hand shot into his pocket. Just at that mo- 
ment Mame started toward the table. Billy rose to greet 
her. A shot rang out. On a line an inch from Billy's 
head the plaster cracked on the wall where the bullet had 
lodged. Before Pug could fire again Mame had flung 
herself in front of Billy, facing the direction from which 
the shot had come, and Pug, afraid to risk another try 
with that shield between him and his intended victim, 
was rushing toward the door, the frightened diners scram- 
bling out of his way. 

Into the street he bolted, cleared the sidewalk at a 
bound and, tearing open the door of a taxicab standing 
on a fine with the door, he shoved the gun against the 
back of the startled chauffeur with a curt command, 
"Shove th' juice into her an' drive like hell!" 

This is so well told that it is pretty evident 
that the only reason for its rejection was the 
undesirable subject. 

156^ 



Common Faults 

The topic of insanity is another which is gen- 
erally too unpleasant to find a place in peri- 
odicals. Poe's tremendous story, The Telltale 
Heart, would probably gain entrance by sheer 
merit; and it is frequently used by public readers 
and elocutionists. But editors do not call for 
such subjects, because the average reader cannot 
sink his dislike of the unpleasant in admiration 
for the art with which, in Poe, the unpleasant 
is depicted. Appreciation of art, of the beautiful 
in technique, and of beauty in its widest sense, 
is sadly lacking in most American magazine 
readers. And so the story writer must remember 
the commonplace advice of the photographer, 
"Look pleasant, please." If he writes as he 
likes on what he likes, editors may finally fall 
down and worship him; but he is taking long 
chances. He may build up a reputation as a 
literary craftsman; but meanwhile the wolf 
may steal up to his door. 

There are encouraging exceptions, however. 
Irvin S. Cobb's gruesome tale, The Belled Buz- 
zard, 1 probably the best he has written, was 
featured on the first page of the Post; and W. 
W. Jacobs' equally gruesome and even more 
artistic story, The Monkey's Paw, was printed 

1 In The Escape of Mr. Trimm. 
[57] 



The Contemporary Short Story 

in Harper's Magazine. 1 But both of these 
stories are so vividly dramatic that they enthrall 
the reader more than the subject repels him. 
And it is worth noting that both writers are 
known chiefly for rollicking humorous tales. 

The closing passage of Mr. Jacobs' story shows 
his art at its best. A dried and withered paw 
is reputed to be a talisman the possession of 
which makes possible the fulfilment of three 
wishes. The possessor wishes for money. It 
comes, but brings the death of a son with it. 
The mother then wishes for his restoration to 
life. What happens is told as but few could 
tell it, in the following climax. Note the skill 
with which the suspense is prolonged — by at 
least half a dozen separate strokes: 

His wife sat up in bed listening. A loud knock re- 
sounded through the house. 

" It's Herbert ! " she screamed. " It's Herbert ! " 

She ran to the door, but her husband was before her, 
and catching her by the arm, held her tightly. 

"What are you going to do?" he whispered hoarsely. 

"It's my boy; it's Herbert!" she cried, struggling 
mechanically. " I forgot it [ the cemetery ] was two miles 
away. What are you holding me for? Let go. I must 
open the door." 

1 September, 1902. Reprinted in The Lady of the Barge. Dodd, 
Mead & Co. 

C58] 



Common Faults 

"For God's sake don't let it in," cried the old man, 
trembling. 

"You're afraid of your own son," she cried struggling. 
"Let me go. I'm coming, Herbert, I'm coming." 

There was another knock, and another. The old 
woman with a sudden wrench broke free and ran from the 
room. Her husband followed her to the landing, and 
called after her appealingly as she hurried down stairs. 
He heard the chain rattle back and the bottom bolt drawn 
slowly and stiffly from the socket. Then the old woman's 
voice, strained and panting. 

"The bolt," she cried loudly. "Come down. I can't 
reach it." 

But her husband was on his hands and knees groping 
wildly on the floor in search of the paw. If he could only 
find it before the thing outside got in! A perfect fusillade 
of knocks reverberated through the house, and he heard 
the scraping of a chair as his wife put it down in the 
passage against the door. He heard the creaking of the 
bolt as it came slowly back, and at the same moment he 
found the monkey's paw, and frantically breathed his 
third and last wish. 

The knocking ceased suddenly, although the echoes 
of it were still in the house. He heard the chair drawn 
back and the door opened. A cold wind rushed up the 
staircase, and a long loud wail of disappointment and 
misery from his wife gave him courage to run down to 
her side, and then to the gate beyond. The street lamp 
flickering opposite shone on a quiet and deserted road. 

It should be observed that the effect of horror 
is relieved by the theme of mother love. The 

[59] 



The Contemporary Short Story 

contrast between the mother's conduct and the 
father's is admirably brought out; the former 
has that perfect love which casts out fear. 

It is, after all, a legitimate demand of readers 
that they be given entertainment and, if possible, 
inspiration. Writers like Thomas Hardy, who 
have a dreary, hopeless outlook on life, are not 
welcomed in popular magazines, however deft 
their literary art. The sex interest of Tess of 
the D'Urbervilles, however, would probably have 
made it desirable as a serial for some erotic 
periodical, had it been written in 1916 instead 
of in 1891. But unrelieved tragedy is seldom 
desired by any magazine. It is only Ibsen's 
wonderful dramatic craftsmanship, his sense 
of effective construction in playwriting, that 
keeps him on the modern stage. The end of 
Shakespeare's gloomiest tragedies leaves us with 
something noble and inspiring to wonder at; 
but in Ibsen and his school — which has pene- 
trated the short story as well as the drama — 
there is nothing to relieve the pessimism. A 
defiant rebel against society, Ibsen busied him- 
self with drawing up indictment after indict- 
ment against human life. But this is not the 
way to build up a magazine circulation of half 
a million or a million copies. The spirit of 

[60] 



Common Faults 

any successful periodical will be found to be 
optimistic. 

That an unfortunate choice of subject is often 
responsible for the rejection of a story is sug- 
gested by the following extracts from letters 
written by editors of prominent magazines: 

The story which you kindly sent us is one which ordi- 
narily we should be inclined to take. Just at present, 
however, we have a large supply of fiction of this type 
and do not feel like buying more. We are looking for 
something in a lighter, more humorous vein. 

In this case there was no serious fault in 
the subject — merely a failure to fit the need 
of the moment. But the following criticism of 
another story indicates how loath is the average 
editor to print anything that may arouse the 
prejudice of conventional readers, readers from 
the great American middle class: 

It is such an out-and-out slap at churches from begin- 
ning to end that I am afraid of it. I don't mind a little 
slap, but this whole story seems to have been written for 
that purpose. 

The tale referred to was far above the average 
and, but for its subject — the hypocrisy of 
church members and their pastor in a case of 
a fallen woman — would easily have sold for 
a high price. 

[61] 



The Contemporary Short Story 

The third example was a sex story, rather 
well written but in its utter frankness much 
better suited to a French than to an American 
public. The editor's comment was merely: 
"This is Boccaccio without Boccaccio's art." 
It pays, therefore, to find out in advance what 
American editors dislike. Based upon years 
of experience, this dislike will generally be 
found to represent accurately the feeling of the 
average subscriber. 

A magazine editor declared, not long ago, 
that most of Poe's tales would be refused by 
popular periodicals to-day. And the statement 
is probably true. The chances are that if Poe 
had been writing from 1900 to the present date, 
he would have developed in a different direction. 
There would have been a public clamor for more 
detective stories like The Purloined Letter and 
The Murders in the Rue Morgue; and Poe, waxing 
fat. and prosperous, would have forgotten the 
morbid fancies embodied in his gloomiest mas- 
terpieces, such as The Fall of the House of Usher 
and The Telltale Heart, and would have turned 
his amazing ratiocinative faculty to financial 
account. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle has ac- 
knowledged his debt to the detective stories of 
Poe. Certain it is that, if he had had our 

[62] 



Common Faults 

modern popular magazines to write for, Edgar 
Allan Poe would not have languished in poverty. 
Probably he would not have become so great 
an artist, but he would have had fewer financial 
worries. 

Editors of safe-and-sane family magazines 
object to stories, however well written, that have 
criminals as heroes. The dashing highwayman 
must not be exploited as a model for the younger 
generation. A prominent magazine declined a 
good story not long ago, partly on this ground, 
although it has printed a long series of "crook" 
tales by George Randolph Chester — the Get- 
Rich-Quick-Walling ford stories. Here the humor 
is so prominent, however, that one almost dis- 
penses with moral judgments. This genial rogue 
may be compared (at a vast distance) to Fal- 
staff , in that he is felt to be in an unreal world 
where everything is a jest. It is questionable, 
however, whether Everybody's or the American 
Magazine would find Wallingford desirable for 
their class of readers. Some readers of the 
American even objected violently to Inez Haynes 
Gillmore's serial, Angel Island, on the ground 
that it was a seductive sex story! If this be 
seductive, what shall one say of — but discre- 
tion bids us pause. 

[63] 



The Contemporary Short Story 

The unpleasant was manifested, in a manu- 
script read by the present writer, by events 
leading up to the marriage of a white woman to a 
low-caste native of India. Her poverty and the 
pleas of the native, a widower, for his mother- 
less children, finally broke down her resistance; 
and she was depicted as finding happiness in 
her surrender. It was a well-told tale, but the 
strong human appeal would not quite overcome 
the prejudice of a fairly large minority of readers 
against such a plot. Kipling triumphed over 
a somewhat similar situation in Without Benefit 
of Clergy, but only by extremely poignant pathos. 
Readers ought not to be so conventional; but 
they are. And the editor must reckon with 
things as they actually exist, not as they should 
be. It is quite conceivable that even Kipling's 
story would have been rejected by a popular 
periodical, if it had been offered by an unknown 
writer. 

One admirably written story was refused 
by several magazines because the heroine had 
a slight taint of negro blood. The pathos of 
the close was so effective that a well-known 
editor exclaimed: "That author certainly can 
write!" Yet he could not bring himself to 
accept it. A second editor wrote that his staff 

[64] 



Common Faults 

was so divided over the story that he did not 
venture to cast a deciding vote in its favor. 
And a third said that his rejection was based 
entirely on the subject. 

Another manuscript that came to the present 
writer was objectionable because it described, 
with vividly realistic details, the washing of 
some extremely dirty school children. It was 
humorous, but it would have proved too much 
for weak stomachs. The following is a passage 
in point: 

"Tony Crito, come here, dear," said the teacher. 

Out stepped a pair of man's amputated breeches. 
Six inches of suspender over the shoulder of a dirty, ragged 
green sweater held the nether garment up under the arm- 
pits of a frowsy, beady-eyed Italian urchin of seven. . . . 
She hastily directed the tenant of the trousers to a front 
seat and addressed her remarks to him there: "Tony, I 
fear you have not taken a bath." 

"Yes-a ma'am," whined Tony, frightened by her se- 
verity. 

"But you are still dirty," declared the teacher. "Did 
you get into the bath-tub?" 

"No can use-a der tub," declared the youngster. 

"Why not?" 

He hung his head. Johnnie, who had started inquir- 
ies of a surprisingly clean urchin in a front seat, paused 
to explain behind the back of his hand, "Lots o' de 
Ginneys use de tub for a coal-bin;" and Tony's silence 

was a confession. 

[65] 



The Contemporary Short Story 

"Tell your mother to use a basin," suggested Helen. 

"No got-a de basin," blubbered the child. 

"Use anything," said teacher desperately. 

Johnnie's confidential low tone broke in, while he 
pointed to the pale specimen he had just interrogated. 
" Angelo says his mother washed him wid de dinner-pot." 

The pretty lady was saved the necessity of comment- 
ing on Angelo's bath by Tony's loud wails of "Smell-a 
me! Smell-a me!" which invitation she and Johnnie both 
accepted, only to find the child's head reeking with cheap 
perfume, a poor substitute for kerosene. 

One of the most hopeless kinds of short stories 
is the one that makes a feeble impression 
throughout, that lacks what in the trade is 
called " punch." Perhaps most modern editors 
would put Jane Austen's novels under this 
classification; but Jane Austen is probably 
the most interesting writer about uninteresting 
things, about humdrum human existence in 
drab little villages, that English literature has 
produced. The truly colorless tale is the one 
that you can't remember forty-eight hours 
after reading it. Five tests of the emotional 
effect of literature, discussed by Professor C. 
T. Winchester in his excellent volume, Some 
Principles of Literary Criticism, 1 are the fol- 
lowing: the justice or propriety of the emotion; 

1 Pp. 81 ff. 
[66] 



Common Faults 

its vividness or power; its continuity or steadi- 
ness; its range or variety; and its rank or qual- 
ity. The second test is the one just referred to. 
In discussing it, Professor Winchester says of 
Cowper, the poet: "He had nice sensibilities, 
a quick eye for beauty, a graceful humor, a 
delicate gift of phrase; but he lacked power. 
He seemed not fully alive." 

A writer without strong personality is as good 
as beaten at the start. Among manuscripts 
submitted by amateurs to the magazines this 
colorless type, the one that makes no definite 
impression, is the most common. In looking 
over a card index of the titles of a good many 
such tales, I find that in most cases I cannot re- 
call the faintest outline of the stories themselves 
— although I experience no such difficulty in 
the case of a strongly written story, no matter 
how faulty in details. Hazlitt somewhere re- 
fers to those persons "who live on their own 
estates and other people's ideas." There is a 
large number of such persons in the world; 
but they ought not to be writing short stories. 

Stories that are too intellectual — i.e., either 
too hard to understand or too destitute of red 
blood — get scant attention from busy editors 
of fifteen-cent monthlies and five-cent weeklies. 

[67] 



The Contemporary Short Story 

No magazine with a circulation of more than 
150,000 can have a highly intelligent audience. 
I recall a beautiful short-story manuscript en- 
titled Pippa Makes a Journey. It could not be 
enjoyed to the full except by a person familiar 
with Browning's dramatic poem, Pippa Passes. 
The heroine spread happiness and turned people 
away from evil in much the same manner as 
did Browning's heroine, although the plot was 
substantially original. To accept such a story 
would be to overestimate the familiarity of maga- 
zine subscribers with the great English poets. 

The tale which is too intellectual in the sense 
of being emotionally arid and lacking in human 
sympathy finds, as a rule, no place in any 
popular periodical. Unlovable authors like Wal- 
ter Savage Landor are unpopular because they 
did not care enough for their fellow men. Mau- 
passant's art seems rather cold to the average 
reader; it is the lover of technique who best 
appreciates this great Frenchman. Some of 
his masterpieces seem, in their remorseless 
analysis of the human soul, to be a kind of 
literary vivisection; and they arouse an actual 
resentment in a commonplace reader. This is 
not true, however, of all his stories. If you 
dislike Maupassant, your literary taste needs 

[68] 



Common Faults 

to be educated. But it must be admitted that 
a periodical with a large circulation can under- 
take only a very limited amount of education 
without danger of losing subscribers. 

Charles Lamb tells us that (unlike Mau- 
passant) he was almost moved to tears, as he 
used to stroll down the crowded Strand in Lon- 
don, by the privilege of seeing so much hu- 
manity. Few authors to-day are so well beloved 
as Lamb. If he were living in the present age 
and if his genius lay in fiction rather than in 
the Essays of Elia, he could command almost 
fabulous prices from magazine editors. For 
stories that touch the heart are, after all, the 
most popular. 1 Read Lamb's Dream Children, 
which comes very near to being a modern short 
story, and judge for yourself. I quote only 
the climax: 

Then I told them [the children] how for seven long 
years, in hope sometimes, sometimes in despair, yet per- 
sisting ever, I courted the fair Alice W — n; and, as much 
as children could understand, I explained to them what 
coyness, and difficulty, and denial meant in maidens — 
when suddenly, turning to Alice, the soul of the first Alice 
looked out at her eyes with such a reality of re-present- 
ment that I became in doubt which of them stood there 

1 One of the finest stories of pathos in recent literature is Mary 
Wilkins' The Little Maid at the Door (in Silence and Other Stories). 

[69] 



The Contemporary Short Story 

before me, or whose that bright hair was; and while I 
stood gazing, both the children gradually grew fainter 
to my view, receding, and still receding till nothing at 
last but two mournful features were seen in the uttermost 
distance, which, without speech, strangely impressed 
upon me the effects of speech: "We are not of Alice, nor 
of thee, nor are we children at all. The children of Alice 
call Bartrum father. We are nothing; less than nothing, 
and dreams. We are only what might have been, and 
must wait upon the tedious shores of Lethe millions of 
ages before we have existence, and a name" — and im- 
mediately awaking, I found myself quietly seated in my 
bachelor armchair, where I had fallen asleep, with the 
faithful Bridget [his sister] unchanged by my side — 
but John L. (or James Elia) was gone forever. 

An objection that will seem curious to some 
writers of fiction is the editor's objection to 
stories that are "far from home" — that have 
an unfamiliar foreign setting. For the fifteen- 
cent periodicals, American themes for American 
readers has become almost a formula. Excep- 
tional tales, especially those by distinguished 
British authors, are admitted to all American 
magazines, wherever their scenes may chance 
to be laid, but a tendency toward the geo- 
graphically remote is distinctly discouraged. 
The most successful of American periodicals, 
from the standpoint of circulation, the Saturday 
Evening Post, is probably the most typically 

[70] 



Common Faults 

American. It is significant that no attempt has 
been made to market a large edition of the Post 
in England. Harper s, Scribners, and the Cen- 
tury all issue important English editions. The 
American edition of that highly successful Brit- 
ish periodical, the Strand Magazine, however, 
had only a small sale; and it has recently been 
discontinued. Evidently middle-class British 
taste in fiction differs markedly from American. 
The Strand prints a good many old-style senti- 
mental love stories which strike the sophisti- 
cated American stenographer and shoe clerk as 
amusing. The whole atmosphere of the Strand 
is certainly almost as British as that of the 
Post is American. The best British writers of 
fiction, nevertheless, are much sought after in 
this country — and rightly. The genuine mas- 
ter may place his theme where he will, and edi- 
tors will have to come to him: witness Kipling 
and India. 

In a symposium in the Bookman (May, 1916), 
several prominent magazine editors tell why 
manuscripts are rejected. The commonest rea- 
son seems to be simply that they are not inter- 
esting enough. The editor of the Cosmopolitan, 
Mr. Edgar G. Sisson, says: "The mediocre 
story compares to the real story in the way that 

[71] 



The Contemporary Short Story 

the tailor's dummy compares to a man. It 
may be clothed in fair words, but it isn't human." 
The editor of Ainslee's, Mr. Robert Rudd 
Whiting, states that the rejection of a well- 
written manuscript by his magazine "is in most 
cases due to its lack of what in people we call 
'personality." Mr. Mark Sullivan, of Collier s 
Weekly, thinks that, speaking of manuscripts 
generally, "it is largely like the phrase that 
was used either by or about ' Maggie ' in Barrie's 
play, What Every Woman Knows: it is all a 
matter of charm. If you have it, you need not 
have much else. If you have not got it, nothing 
else will do." But one may safely assume that 
Mr. Sullivan insists, as a rule, on good technique 
and attractive subjects. 

At all events, there is little or no favoritism. 
An editor does not accept a story because he 
knows the author; he accepts it solely because 
it will help to sell his magazine. Any other 
policy would cost him his position. Mr. Arthur 
T. Vance, of the Pictorial Review, gives a con- 
vincing instance in point: "There was a man in 
my office yesterday who has written and sold 
more than two million words of fiction and 
special articles. His work has appeared in 
various magazines of standing, including The 

[72] 



Common Faults 

Pictorial Review, The Saturday Evening Post, 
and The Woman's Home Companion. Yet this 
was the first time he had ever been east of the 
Mississippi River; the first time he had ever 
been in a magazine office; the first time he had 
ever seen an editor." And Mr. Vance adds: 
"The country is full of writers who are selling 
their work without knowing the editors." So 
much for the myth of personal "pull." 

Of all amateur fallacies the most amusing, 
if not the most common, is the assumption that 
a story gains interest and value from being 
founded directly on fact. On the contrary, 
such a story seldom succeeds, for real life does 
not fall into well-ordered plots. Furthermore, 
real life contains numberless superfluities that 
must be pruned away. Good fiction is not 
photographic; it represents life accurately, but 
after the method of the painter. A trained 
writer sees or reads about a real incident or series 
of incidents that illustrate the fumbling incerti- 
tude of nature. He says to himself that it will 
not be difficult to change that fumbling incerti- 
tude into the swift, unerring certainty and 
satisfying finality of art. Real life is often 
more improbable than art, more bizarre, more 
lawless and unclassifiable. Some newspapers 

[73] 



The Contemporary Short Story 

make a specialty of odd items that seem incred- 
ible. But fiction must be more convincing than 
actual life. Such an item as the following, 
clipped from a newspaper, would make an un- 
convincing basis for a short-story plot: 

Miss W L , while dreaming and walking in 

her sleep, cut off her hair. She dreamed there were 
burglars in the house and that they told her if she would 
cut off her hair and give it to them they would take 
nothing else. When she awoke she found that she had 
left her bed, gone into another room, and cropped her 
hair close to her head. 

I recall a story written by a young man (who 
afterward got into some of the best magazines), 
about a locomotive engineer whose sweetheart 
lived in a house near the railroad track. One 
day she and a girl companion were walking on 
the track at a point beyond a curve or a cov- 
ered bridge, where they could not be seen by 
this engineer in time to stop his train. What 
would he naturally do? The young author, 
declaring that he took his story from real life, 
made the engineer increase rather than decrease 
the speed of his locomotive, in order that the 
death of the two girls, which was inevitable in 
any case, might be an painless as possible! 
True or not, this is not credible to the average 

[74] 



Common Faults 

reader and is therefore not good character- 
drawing in fiction. Nature does what art dare 
not do. 

In dialogue, too, one should represent rather 
than transcribe real life — the talk of real people. 
Natural and convincing dialogue is exceedingly 
hard for some writers of fiction to acquire. 1 
The talk of their characters sounds stilted, 
artificial, often futile. It is just talk — and 
not in character. Good dialogue characterizes, 
advances the action, or explains past action. 
There is no further recipe for success in it, save 
that it should admit no superfluities. It should 
condense and heighten the talk of real people. 
Some one has said that good dialogue in fiction 
is like the real talk of clever people in their best 
moments. This is true of the amusing small- 
boy dialogue in Booth Tarkington's Penrod 
tales and of the society chat in the stories 
of Edith Wharton. The commonplace and 
the dull are eliminated. But only the dra- 
matic faculty — the faculty of putting yourself 
in another's place — can result in excellent 
dialogue. 

An obvious lack of this faculty is discernible 
in the following passage from an unpublished 

1 A useful model is Anthony Hope's Dolly Dialogues. 

[75] 



The Contemporary Short Story 

manuscript. The dialogue is "wooden"; it is 
unconvincing. It fails to give an impression of 
real life. Instead of ease and naturalness, there 
is stiffness and awkwardness: 

"If you refuse to believe it," she said, with her in- 
fectious laugh, in which there now hovered a slight hint 
of constraint, "you cannot at any rate refuse to try the 
experiment.' , 

He did not notice the constraint. "Certainly I won't 
refuse," he replied, with a provoking slow smile. "I've 
committed a thousand worse follies during the past year." 

"You are the perfection of frankness," she rejoined. 
"But as a mathematician you are of course devoted to 
exact truth." 

"And my exact opinion of you, Mrs. Worthing, is that 
you are a congenial companion raised to the nth power." 

"How devoid of romance!" she cried, with a nutter of 
pretended dismay. "Your awful sense of reality and 
exactness quite upsets me. I wonder if there isn't some 
reason why I should quarrel with you for it." 

"Let us not search too long, for we might find one," 
he returned, half seriously. "Please allow our friendship 
to rest in peace." 

"Ah! that is ominous; it suggests the Latin inscrip- 
tion." 

In a passage from another manuscript there 
is, on the contrary, at least a fair attempt 
at characterizing dialogue, although complete 
naturalness is not attained here, either: 

[76] 



Common Faults 

When, a few days later, Ayrton saw his genial publisher, 
he found a shock awaiting him. Harding placed a severe 
hand on his shoulder. "Meddler!" he said, only half 
in jest, "you have robbed me of my stenographer, philos- 
opher, and friend. Take your novel and go to the devil ! " 

The famous author grew white. He stammered: 
"What — why?— " 

"Yes, just so," assented his tormentor. "Miss Morris 
is threatening to resign — got sick of us. Her father 
declares that the work's too much for her; that she 
mustn't return. And the surprising thing is that she 
tamely submits. It's not like her. She's a fighter — 
and a good girl, too. Never been tired before. Must 
be her helping you with your confounded novel. Looks 
to me, my boy, as if you had messed things up generally." 

The publisher looked keenly at him, and chuckled. 
His chuckle became a laugh, then a succession of spasms 
of contagious mirth. The walls reverberated. 

Ayrton flushed, thought better of a desire to show 
anger, and capitulated. "Well, have I got a move left," 
he demanded, "or am I already checkmated?" 

"You've got a move, all right; but I can't tell you. 
You must play the game yourself. It wouldn't be fair 
for me to interfere. And with your microscopic knowl- 
edge of the feminine heart I must say you have about 
one chance in — let me see — " He paused, and emitted 
a seemingly endless succession of chuckles. 

So nearly perfect is Shakespeare's dramatic 
faculty that one speaks, quite properly, of his 
characters as real people and of their talk as 

[77] 



The Contemporary Short Story 

absolutely in character. But the language of 
Shakespeare, except in some of his prose scenes, 
is pitched at a level far above that of ordinary 
mortals in the real world. The following pas- 
sage, however, differs only in degree, not in 
kind, from some of the talk in the best of our 
modern short stories. But who to-day could 
create a Falstaff or a Prince Hal? 

Prince. Thou say'st true, hostess; and he slanders 
thee most grossly. 

Hostess. So he doth you, my lord; and said this other 
day you ought [owed] him a thousand pound. 

Prince. Sirrah, do I owe you a thousand pound? 

Falstaff. A thousand pound, Hal! A million. Thy 
love is worth a million; thou ow'st me thy love. 

Hostess. Nay, my lord, he called you Jack, and said 
he would cudgel you. 

Fal. Did I, Bardolph? 

Bard. Indeed, Sir John, you said so. 

Fal. Yea, if he said my ring was copper. 

Prince. I say 'tis copper. Dar'st thou be as good 
as thy word now? 

Fal. Why, Hal, thou know'st, as thou art but man, 
I dare; but as thou art prince, I fear thee as I fear the 
roaring of the lion's whelp. 

Prince. And why not as the lion? 

Fal. The King himself is to be feared as the lion. 
Dost thou think I'll fear thee as I fear thy father? Nay, 
an I do, I pray God my girdle break. 

[78] 



Common Faults 

Prince. O, if it should, how would thy guts fall about 
thy knees! . . . Charge an honest woman with picking 
thy pocket! why, thou impudent, emboss'd rascal, if 
there were anything in thy pocket but tavern-reckonings, 
and one poor penny-worth of sugar-candy to make thee 
long-winded, if thy pocket were enriched with any other 
injuries but these, I am a villain. And yet you will stand 
to it; you will not pocket up wrong. Art thou not 
ashamed? 

Fal. Dost thou hear, Hal? Thou know'st in the 
state of innocency Adam fell; and what should poor 
Jack Falstaff do in the days of villainy? Thou seest I 
have more flesh than another man, and therefore more 
frailty. You confess, then, you picked my pocket? 

Prince. It appears so by the story. 

Fal. Hostess, I forgive thee. Go, make ready break- 
fast; love thy husband, look to thy servants, cherish thy 
guests. Thou shalt find me tractable to any honest 
reason; thou seest I am pacified still. Nay, prithee, be 
gone. 

The dialogue of a good many modern novels 
and short stories — that of Robert W. Cham- 
bers, for example — often fails to convince 
because it is more flippant, inconsequent, and 
trivial than that of real life. Mr. Chambers 
writes good dialogue when he wishes, however. 
The trouble is that in a good deal of his work, 
and in that of many other magazine entertainers, 
there is often a lack of elevation, of nobility. 

[79] 



The Contemporary Short Story 

Their dialogue, like their sentiment and their 
moral tone, is at a low level. It was said of 
Goldsmith that he "wrote like an angel, but 
talked like poor Poll." It may be said of some 
of our modern authors that their characters 
talk like poor Poll; but it can hardly be said of 
them that they write like angels. 



EXERCISES 

1. Even in Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories 
there are many minor details which are unconvincing. 
Make a list of these in three or four of the tales in his 
volumes : The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, The Memoirs 
of Sherlock Holmes, The Return of Sherlock Holmes. You 
will find that the third volume is, as a whole, inferior to 
the first two. In which stories? Or in what respects? 
Are the unconvincing elements sufficient, in any case, or 
cases, to affect the plausibility of the whole story? 

2. Give at least two examples of "plot-ridden" 
characters in recent magazine stories. You will find 
plenty of these in some of the minor periodicals, where a 
clever twist of plot is more desired than truthful delin- 
eation of character; but you will probably haVe difficulty 
in discovering many such characters in Harper's, Scrib- 
ner's, the Century, or the Atlantic. 

3. On the other hand, you will find in the four maga- 
zines just mentioned not a few examples of stories which 
lack action — enough action to satisfy the average reader 

[80] 



I 



Common Faults 

of more popular magazines such as the Saturday Evening 
Post and the Pictorial Review. Make outlines of three 
such stories and suggest, if possible, how more action 
could be introduced. Can you find any such stories in 
any of Kipling's volumes? Stevenson's? O. Henry's? 

4. If you know some of the types of character in the 
remote small towns of New England, test several of Mary 
Wilkins-Freeman's stories (in the volume, A New England 
Nun, for example) for credibility of character portrayal. 
Persons unacquainted with New England have often 
charged her with drawing grotesque and impossible 
people — people too eccentric and unreasonable to exist. 
Do you discover any evidence of this? 

5. Find, in a good magazine, at least one example of a 
story with an unpleasant or tragic subject. What is the 
effect of the story upon you? Upon some of your 
friends? 

6. Briefly describe five stories by Poe which would 
probably not be accepted by any high-class modern 
periodical on account of their painful or disgusting sub- 
jects. On the other hand, describe five in which the art 
of the narrative atones for the unpleasantness of the 
subject. In which division would you place The Cask 
of Amontillado ? The Case of M. Valdemar ? 

7. Give an example, taken from a newspaper or from 
your own experience, of an actual occurrence too incredi- 
ble to make a good subject for a fiction story. 

8. Copy two or more passages of dialogue which seems 
to you to be artificial in any respect — too "high-flown," 
or too clever, or (in the case of an uneducated character) 

[81] 



The Contemporary Short Story 

too nearly corregt. Then copy two passages which seem 
to you to represent dialogue at its best; and tell why. 
(You will find O. Henry decidedly uneven as to the 
quality of his dialogue. Try Henry James' later novels 
and short stories for involved sentences and, in general, 
lack of simple, straightforward expression.) 

9. Is the following newspaper item a good subject 
for a story? Why, or why not? 

Miss Mary , an assistant in the city library, 

died today from the effect of terrible burns inflicted 
with suicidal intent last night. The young woman 
poured kerosene oil over her head and shoulders and 

then thrust her head in the furnace. Miss was 

thirty-five years old and was well known in musical 
circles. 

10. Stevenson's The Sire de Maletroifs Door (in A 
Book of Short Stories) would obviously be improbable in 
a present-day setting. Show why. Also indicate why it 
would be especially improbable in an American setting. 

11. Give an example of a story with a happy ending 
which fails to convince you — one whose ending would 
logically seem to be tragic or at least somber. On the 
other hand, would it be possible to supply logical happy 
endings for any of Poe's gloomy tales? Why, or why 
not? 

12. Find a story, either in a magazine or in volumes 
by writers of reputation, which to you is hopelessly dull; 
and tell why. (If two students disagree on a partic- 
ular story, the discussion can often be made highly 
illuminating to the class as a whole.) 

[82] 



Common Faults 

13. Describe two stories of contemporary life which 
show very close acquaintance with the subjects they 
treat — baseball, society life, seafaring, lumbering, hos- 
pital routine, a particular city or section. And find, if 
possible, one story which reveals obvious ignorance of 
some details which it attempts to portray. 



[83] 



CHAPTER III 

STRUCTURE 

How few are willing to admit the possibility of 
reconciling genius with artistic skill! Yet this recon- 
ciliation is not only possible, but an absolute necessity. 
— Edgar Allan Poe, Essay on Bryant. 

Scribe used to say that "when my subject is good, 
when my scenario is very clear, very complete, I might 
have the play written by my servant; he would be 
sustained by the situation; — and the play would 
succeed." From Scribe, who was only an ingenious 
mechanician of the drama, this may not surprise us; 
but his saying would not be greatly objected to by any 
true dramatist, poet, or prose-man, for it is only an 
overstatement of the truth. Menander, the master 
of Greek comedy, was once asked about his new play, 
so Plutarch tells us, and he anwered: "It is composed 
and ready; I have only the verses to write." Racine's 
son reports an almost identical remark of his father's 
in answer to a similar inquiry. And there is no dis- 
pute possible as to the elevated position attained by 
Racine and by Menander when they are judged by 
purely literary standards. — Brander Matthews, A 
Study of the Drama. 1 

A first-class writer of short fiction must be 
a lover of technique; he must be an artist. 

1 Houghton Mifflin Co. 
[84] 



Structure 

For the structure of a good short story is a thing 
of architectural beauty. One of Hawthorne's 
best tales, The Artist of the Beautiful, may 
almost be taken as an allegory of a lifelong 
ambition to create a perfect plot, "a thing of 
beauty and a joy forever." It is actually a 
mechanical butterfly which the artist in the 
story creates, but the delicacy of workmanship 
required is much the same as that which con- 
fronted Hawthorne himself in his highly imag- 
inative narrative and which confronts any 
conscientious workman to-day. Kipling, like 
so many short-story writers nowadays, is artist 
plus journalist; but in his case the artist is 
undeniably present. 

Since the ascent from the third-rate and the 
second-rate magazines to the first-rate is quite 
as much a matter of mastery of structure as 
of any other one thing, it is important that the 
problem be put clearly before the ambitious 
beginner. Poe, who was one of the greatest 
artists that have used the short-story form as 
a vehicle of expression, declared (borrowing 
some of his thunder from Aristotle) that in his 
time plot was very imperfectly understood. 
"Many persons regard it as mere complexity of 
incident. In its most rigorous acceptation, it 

[85] 



The Contemporary Short Story 

is that from which no component atom can be 
removed, and in which none of the component 
atoms can be displaced, without ruin to the 
whole." 

Above all else, moreover, the short story as 
Poe wrote it aimed at unity of effect. In a 
passage which has become classic, he says: 

A skilful literary artist has constructed a tale. If 
wise, he has not fashioned his thoughts to accommodate 
his incidents; but having conceived, with deliberate 
care, a certain unique or single effect to be wrought out, he 
then invents such incidents — he then combines such 
events as may best aid him in establishing this precon- 
ceived effect. If his very initial sentence tend not to the 
out-bringing of this effect, then he has failed in his first 
step. In the whole composition there should be no word 
written of which the tendency, direct or indirect, is not 
to the one pre-established design. As by such means, 
with such care and skill, a picture is at length painted 
which leaves in the mind of him who contemplates it with 
a kindred art a sense of the fullest satisfaction. The idea 
of the tale has been presented unblemished, because un- 
disturbed; and this is an end unattainable by the novel. 1 

This type of story is still frequently found 
in the best magazines. Deficient as many 
modern tales are in finish of style, most of them 
are astonishingly good in technique, in effective- 

1 Graham's Magazine, May, 1835. 

C86] 



Structure 

ness of structure, and in economy of means. 
The short story as Poe wrote it may, purely 
by way of useful suggestion rather than pre- 
scription, be defined as a tale which, purposing 
to convey a single effect, or an impression of a 
situation, sets forth to secure this effect by an in- 
troduction which strikes the keynote {the opening 
of The Fall of the House of Usher is a model 
in this respect), by skilful touches of suggestion 
which hint at the outcome without revealing it, 
by maintenance of atmosphere and unity, and by 
progress toward a climax which is unexpected 
and dramatic, and which, with the addition at 
times of a few words to restore a quieter tone, 
abruptly ends the narrative. This implies, cer- 
tainly, that the construction of a notable short 
story is no child's play. It must have a design 
as definite as a geometrical figure. 

A short-story writer is not necessarily a good 
novelist; and vice versa. There is really little 
in common between the two literary forms. 
Professor Brander Matthews stoutly affirms: 
"It cannot be said too emphatically that the 
genuine Short-Story abhors the idea of the 
Novel." l The rich complexity of a great novel 
(Vanity Fair contains about sixty characters) 

1 The Philosophy of the Short-Story, p. 26. 

[87] 



The Contemporary Short Story 

is and must be absent. The utmost compres- 
sion and accuracy of aim are essential. Fre- 
quently the short story fulfils the three unities 
of the drama — those of time, place, and action. 
Hawthorne's The Ambitious Guest, Poe's The 
Masque of the Red Death, and Stevenson's The 
Sire de Maletroifs Door are confined to one day 
and one locality. On the other hand, one of the 
greatest of modern short stories, Kipling's 
The Man Who Would Be King, covers two years 
— chiefly, however, by two exceedingly vivid 
contrasted scenes. And Maupassant's The 
Necklace covers ten years! Here again, nev- 
ertheless, the story consists chiefly of two 
contrasted scenes. 

Maupassant, in this as in many of his master- 
pieces, succeeded in keeping far below the 5,000- 
word standard. Some of his best work was 
done within 3,000 words. For masterly com- 
pression and directness he is probably the best 
author to study. The average story, when 
accepted by an editor, is promptly condensed 
by him. Sometimes, in the case of a new 
writer, from 1,000 to 2,000 words are removed, 
with the result that the story becomes more 
craftsmanlike and effective. The commonest 
and most salutary correction, in any form of 

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Structure 

written composition, is amputation. In many 
stories there is too much beginning and too much 
ending — and some superfluous tissue in 
between. Walter Pater's dictum on this point 
of brevity is suggestive: "All art does but con- 
sist in the removal of surplusage." 

In verse, Browning succeeded in telling a 
remarkable story, My Last Duchess, in about 
450 words. In his dramatic monologue, a 
first-person method of narration (with a silent 
listener) makes possible the utmost brevity of 
skilful suggestion; and suggestion is always 
more forcible than direct information. Gossips 
have known this from time immemorial. 

In My Last Duchess, however, an intelligent 
reader is required to get all the subtle sug- 
gestions, both of character and event. So 
much brevity is probably not quite consistent 
with perfect clearness. Those who are inter- 
ested in the dramatic and narrative effect ob- 
tained in Browning's monologues will do well 
to consult also Andrea del Sarto, a very modern 
"marriage-problem" story. One need no longer 
fear the "high-brow" stigma that used to 
attach to the study of Browning; for Mr. 
William Griffith has discovered rich motion- 
picture possibilities in him! The present writer 

[89] 



The Contemporary Short Story 

can testify to this, after seeing Mr. Griffith's 
film adaptation of Pippa Passes. The fact is, 
of course, that pantomime — and motion pic- 
tures are only a subdivision of pantomime — is 
always the skeleton of any good play or dra- 
matic poem; frequently, also, of a dramatically 
constructed short story. Maurice Hewlett's 
Madonna of the Peach Tree 1 is a series of vivid 
scenes in which a beautiful young mother whom 
the superstitious Italian peasants believe to 
be the Madonna appears to various groups of 
people and causes them to fall down in worship. 
It is an extraordinarily effective and sincere 
example of craftsmanship in which the structure 
is so simple that a child could analyze it. Much 
the same method is to be seen in Fleta Camp- 
bell Springer's excellent story, In Step, 2 which 
was starred by the Boston Transcript as one of 
the notable short stories of 1914. Mrs. Spring- 
er's own account of the working out of the 
structure of this tale is as follows: 

The story is an attempt to portray an entire life and 
personality by means of four pictures snapped, so to 
speak, at long intervals in the life of the central char- 
acter, but at moments which light up the spaces between. 
This method grew naturally out of the fact that the story 

1 In LiMe Navels of Italy. 2 Harper's Magazine, July, 1914. 

[90] 






Structure 

was itself suggested to me by just such a detached pic- 
ture — the picture which afterward became the third one 
of the four. 

I was sitting one day in the park when a woman with 
her baby and nursemaid came and settled themselves on 
the grass not far away. The instant I saw the woman 
I knew that she had never been meant for a mother. 
The word "counterfeit" presented itself immediately in 
connection with her attitude toward the child. And 
with that faithfulness to truth with which our senses 
sometimes reject their own evidence, I seemed to see 
this woman in her rightful sphere — a rigid little school- 
mistress, the kind of schoolmistress children both fear 
and despise. A nature made up of elements chemically 
antagonistic to the rest of mankind — a nature, when I 
had finally analyzed it, "out of step" with life. 

"It was not," to quote from the story itself, "the idea 
of her having a child that struck me as incongruous; it 
was the idea of a child having her for a mother. She was 
absorbed in the baby, putting on its little jacket, tying 
the little kid bootees more snugly — and all the while 
going on in that absurd baby talk that is such a pretty 
ofiiciousness in very young mothers. Could it be pos- 
sible that it was not her child, I wondered — and then I 
saw the fierceness with which she held the little body 
close to her own, as if she would clutch its naked spirit 
in her two thin hands. There was no longer any doubt. 
. . . Yet I had that same impression of falsity, of acting, 
that I had felt that day in her house a year before." 

In a story of this kind the thesis must precede the plot, 
and my thesis was that no person of one type can con- 
sciously become another type. 

[91] 



The Contemporary Short Story 

Briefly, then, my plot was this: A cold, selfish woman, 
entirely lacking the maternal instinct and all the normal 
feminine impulses, sets out consciously to become like 
other women. She leaves her profession of teaching, 
bends all her efforts to making herself attractive to one 
man, achieves marriage, has a child, the child dies in- 
evitably, leaving the husband aged and saddened, while 
she looks younger, better, at the end of the story than at 
the beginning. 

Obviously there were no dramatic moments to record. 
Whatever drama there was took place in the mind of the 
central character. Seeing the woman with her baby in 
the park that day had not been a dramatic incident; it 
had, on the other hand, been most undramatic and cas- 
ual; and I realized that it was that very thing which had 
made the incident so illuminating and eloquent. 

I put the story in the mouth of an entire outsider, a 
stranger with no " story" connection whatever, except 
that the "pictures" are seen through her eyes. The 
first picture must show the woman in her original and 
real character. Therefore I put her in the schoolhouse, 
and devised a brief incident or two to show the children's 
fear of her, and her lack of sympathy for them. 

The next picture was "snapped" in her home in New 
York after she had become Mrs. Branson, and after she 
had deliberately changed herself as to dress, manner, 
speech, and mode of fife so startlingly that the reciter of 
the story fails to recognize the figure seen in the first 
picture. 

The third picture is the one first quoted, the one which 
suggested the story. And this picture, in which the death 
of the child is foreshadowed, is as obviously the climax 

[92] 



Structure 

as would be, say, a murder committed by an unscrupu- 
lous character in a story of dramatic action — leaving 
for the fourth and last picture merely the presentation of 
the final effect of the experience upon the character. 
Therefore I chose for the last picture a mere passing 
glimpse of Mrs. Branson in her mourning black, walking 
down the Avenue with her husband. Her expression, her 
appearance, as well as the changed appearance of the 
husband, make plain the effect of the experiences through 
which they have passed. 

For brevity (about 1600 words) and strict 
adherence to the three unities, Arthur Morri- 
son's admirable little cameo of realism in the 
East End of London, On the Stairs, 1 will repay 
careful study. The action, as indicated by the 
title, all takes place on the stairs of a tenement 
building, the kind of tenement "where the front 
door stood open all day long, and the woman- 
kind sat on the steps, talking of sickness and 
deaths and the cost of things." Three flights 
up, on the landing, an old woman tells a com- 
panion about a dying son. When the doctor 
comes out, he gives the mother five shillings to 
buy medicine — which she saves for the (to 
her mind) inevitable funeral! Nothing leaves 
the room all night, "nothing that opened the 

1 In Tales of Mean Streets; also in Cody's The World's Greatest Short 
Stories. 

[93] 



The Contemporary Short Story 

door." Next morning the two old women re- 
appear on the stairs and the mother says that 
she must be stirring, to make arrangements 
for the funeral. There is unusual power of 
atmosphere in the story, partly due to the per- 
fect unity and great compression. It is not 
pleasant, but one feels its truth to the life which 
it aims to portray. To the student, its struc- 
ture is its most interesting feature. 

Ward Muir's account of the genesis of his 
unusual tale, Sunrise, and of his general methods 
of composition is commended to every young 
author. It shows the ambition, and in this 
case the achievement, of the real artist: 

In this story \_Sunrise~\ I departed absolutely from all 
my usual rules. To begin with, it was built on what I 
call a theoretical plot. These I very seldom bother about. 
You hit on a theoretical ethical situation, then invent 
people and a place to express it. For example, you say 
to yourself: "Suppose it was possible to prevent a war 
by murdering a baby in cold blood, should it be done?" 
and then proceed to build the situation in actual drama. 

I got the idea: "Suppose it was possible for a grown-up 
person never to have seen the sun, what would he or she 
think if suddenly presented with the phenomenon of the 
sun rising — a phenomenon which we see without the 
slightest emotion?" 

It seemed a dramatic notion. I cast about me to make 
it practicable, and naturally thought first of a blind man 

[94] 






Structure 

restored to sight. Old. Besides, he would have felt the 
sun on his face, and heard about it. Therefore some sort 
of cave dweller. To be more effective, a woman, not a 
man. And so on. Where? Some queer part of the 
earth: such a thing is unthinkable in a civilized country. 
China, for various reasons. Here I broke another rule 
of mine — never to write about a place I have not per- 
sonally seen. This I regard as important. Neverthe- 
less, I had to let it go. I have never been in China, but 
have talked with very many who have. 

You see how the thing was built. All quite deliberate, 
every single touch chosen for a reason. It was only as I 
looked into it that I saw that a spiritual adventure ought 
really to follow the course of the physical one, to make it 
subtler. Hence the missionaries. 

The story was written straight ahead, at great length; 
then ferociously cut: then typed and then most minutely 
worked on. The mere correction of this story took me 
at least a month — I mean the polishing and refining of 
it. In case it is of interest I may here say that I never 
send out a serious story (by which I mean a story to a 
really good magazine — of course I do lots of journalism) 
without going over it with a microscope some twenty or 
thirty times : this not so much for re- writing purposes as 
for the choice of words. My typescripts (I write either 
on the machine or with a pen) are covered with altered 
words — altered sometimes for the sake of sound and 
sometimes to sharpen the precision of meaning — and 
also I cut and cut and cut and boil down. Then the 
whole thing is retyped, and this final typescript requires 
no alteration whatever. If I get a proof I scarcely ever 
have to alter a single word, because my final original was 

[95] 



The Contemporary Short Story 

as perfect as I could make it. This I personally count 
to be an important feature of our craft: I think that 
some authors do not spend enough pains on their vocab- 
ulary in any given story. I admit it doesn't "pay," at 
least not at first glance, though in the long run I have 
the faith to believe that it does. But it is an essential 
drudgery of craftsmanship. 

Mr. Muir adds that the tales of his own which 
he himself likes best are his very short ones, 
such as Motives 1 and Behind the Windows. 2 
"They get a drama into about 2,000 words — 
which I flatter myself is an exceedingly difficult 
(and artistically self-denying) thing to do. If 
I may say so, the American short story is apt 
to spread itself and not sufficiently study econ- 
omy of words, etc., in getting its effect, and is 
too fond of dwelling on local color and intro- 
ducing unnecessary characters." 

W. W. Jacobs modestly describes his methods 
thus: "I start with an idea, or the beginnings 
of one, and then let it develop. That is all 
that I can say about it." But those of us who 
have read Mr. Jacobs' stories know that the 
process is not so simple as this sounds. His 
development of a narrative idea is always a 
revelation of art, and of highly painstaking 
art. Like many of the best short-story writers, 

1 McClure's, June, 1914. 2 McClure's, Aug., 1913. 

[96] 



Structure 

he comes very close to the drama in his tech- 
nique. 

There is much more in common between the 
short story and the drama than would at first 
be supposed. The only kind of novel that can 
readily and properly be dramatized is, as Pro- 
fessor Brander Matthews has pointed out, 1 
one which is "inherently dramatic," one in 
which "the central figure is master of his fate 
and captain of his soul." "Action in the drama 
is thus seen to be not mere movement or external 
agitation; it is the expression of a will which 
knows itself." Brunetiere made it plain, adds 
Professor Matthews, that "the drama must 
reveal the human will in action; and that the 
central figure must know what he wants and 
must strive for it with incessant determination." 
This assertion of the human will is the secret 
of the success of many of the greatest short 
stories. It applies, at the climax, to Henry 
Rowland's The Copy-Cat, mentioned in the 
first chapter. It is the entire theme of Mr. 
Foote's Opus 43, Number 6; also of Mary 
Wilkins' The Revolt of "Mother" and of the 
story which Poe himself regarded as his greatest, 
Ligeia. To this tale he prefixes a remarkable 

1 A Study of the Drama, p. 95. 

[97] 



The Contemporary Short Story 

quotation from Joseph Glanvil, which shows 
that he had meditated deeply upon the subject, 
for narrative purposes, of the power of the 
human will: 

And the will therein lieth, which dieth not. Who 
knoweth the mysteries of the will, with its vigour? For 
God is but a great will pervading all things by nature of 
its intentness. Man doth not yield himself to the angels, 
nor unto death utterly, save only through the weakness 
of his feeble will. 

Peter B. Kyne's series of tales l about Cap- 
tain Matt Peasley, of Thomaston, Maine, and 
old Cappy Ricks, his employer, from the same 
shipping port, reveals also this naked assertion 
of human will, and the clash of two opposing 
wills — in a much more wholesome, if less ar- 
tistic, way than the morbid Ligeia. It is this 
assertion of will, sweeping aside all obstacles, 
that makes possible the directness and brevity 
of so many excellent short stories; and a clash 
of wills makes possible the series by Mr. Kyne. 

It is assertion of will that makes possible 
the struggle which in some form must be the 
theme of nearly all good short fiction — and 
long fiction as well. It is evident that real 

1 In the Saturday Evening Post. Published in book form 'under the 
title, Cappy Ricks. 

[98] 






Structure 

life is a continual struggle; in terms of evolu- 
tion, a struggle for existence and the survival 
of the fittest. The conflict may be, as Pro- 
fessor W. B. Pitkin 1 has pointed out, between 
man and the physical world, between man and 
man, or between one force and another in the 
same man. The most forcible illustration of 
the last is perhaps Stevenson's Dr. Jehyll and 
Mr. Hyde. The first is shown in almost any 
story which portrays the pioneer or the outdoor 
man. The Popular and Adventure are full of such 
tales. The Post is full of stories of the second 
class, particularly the struggle of man against 
man in the business game. War stories are a 
subdivision of this class: the struggle of nation 
against nation. Wherever there is conflict, there 
is material for a story, whether in the great 
events of the French Revolution or in the 
pranks of small boys. There is a decisive mo- 
ment that forms a climax; and there is some 
driving power, some strong motive, that spurs 
men on to this moment. 

When a story drags, it is often from a lack of 
definiteness of purpose. The novelist, as in 
the case of Dickens and Thackeray, frequently 
used to let his narrative shape itself as it pro- 

1 Short Story Writing, p. 74. 

[99] 



The Contemporary Short Story 

ceeded. He made no preliminary outline of 
the plot. But woe to the short-story writer 
who consistently pursues such a method! He 
might better have a millstone hung about his 
neck and be dropped into the middle of the 
sea. The dramatist Dekker, a contemporary 
of Shakespeare, was an " inspirationist " ; that 
is, he trusted to inspiration rather than to hard 
and methodical work. And the result was that 
his latest plays were just as slipshod and ineffec- 
tive in structure as his first — though excellent 
in certain other respects. The present writer 
knows of a successful novelist who has essayed 
several short stories without success because 
she puts pen to paper without a clear idea of 
how her story is to be developed. She has 
failed to visualize its geometrical design. Har- 
old Bell Wright is a man too commonplace in 
inventiveness, too destitute of story ideas, to 
produce an effective short story. His effort 
in the Ladies 9 Home Journal (The Girl at the 
Spring x ) was nothing beyond the common- 
place. 

Owen Wister's trenchant article 2 on Quack 
Novels and American Democracy, would have 
lacked material if he had treated the American 

1 Sept., 1912. 2 Atlantic Monthly, June, 1915. 

[100] 



Structure 

short story. More real brains are required 
for the construction of an excellent short story 
than for a hundred pages of many a novel. A 
writer of successful historical novels was once 
heard to remark that he wished some one would 
teach him how to write a short story. He had 
tried it several times, but had not the remotest 
idea of the recipe for success. It is significant 
that most short-story writers succeed at the 
novel, if they try after the age of thirty, whereas 
many really notable novelists have failed to 
achieve anything beyond mediocrity in the 
brief tale. It is mainly a matter of technique, 
a matter of structure. Leisurely methods do 
not suffice. The writer of marketable short 
stories must know precisely — not hazily or 
lazily — what he wants to do. And he must 
go direct to his goal. As for reading, let him 
get by heart (literally, if he wishes) the best of 
Maupassant, the best of Poe, and the best of 
Kipling. And, for style, let him study Steven- 
son, who has many pupils among well-known 
writers of to-day. Maupassant, says Professor 
Matthews, had " a Greek sense of form, a Latin 
power of construction, and a French felicity of 
style." What more can any amateur desire 
in a model? 

[101] 



The Contemporary Short Story 

One of the short story MSS. examined by the 
present writer was faulty in structure because 
of its handling of the time element and of the 
conclusion. A blind woman was taken ' into a 
house by a sympathetic man who had seen her 
stumble and fall. She told him that fourteen 
years before, when she was twenty, she had 
been happily married. A year afterward her 
husband was badly injured in an automobile ac- 
cident, his face being horribly disfigured. Mor- 
bidly fearing that she might shrink from him 
on account of his appearance, she deliberately 
blinded herself. After a few months, how- 
ever, his scars healed and he was nearly or quite 
as handsome as ever. Finding his wife some- 
thing of a burden, by reason of her blindness, 
he became unfaithful to her. She learned the 
facts and left his house without telling him or 
any of her relatives where she was going. They 
had never discovered her afterward. Upon the 
conclusion of her tale, she left her auditor, ask- 
ing him not to try to find her. 

Obviously, even if well constructed, this 
would be too sentimental and unconvincing; 
but the structure at least could be improved. 
The story should begin at the point where the 
husband is brought home after the accident. 

[102] 



Structure 

Then the previous circumstances of their mar- 
ried life could be briefly introduced. The tell- 
ing of the story to the sympathetic man fourteen 
years afterward should be discarded. It loses 
in dramatic force by this indirect method. 
The closing scene should be that in which the 
blind wife confronts her husband and charges 
him with infidelity. And the tale should per- 
haps end with a mere sentence or two describing 
her flight — for example, with this passage, 
quoted almost directly from the manuscript: 

Then she left him and went upstairs. She departed in 
the middle of the night. He didn't believe that she would 
go. But she did. 

The common fault, and the fatal fault, in 
structure is the weak ending. The great short 
story, as Poe implied, should be written back- 
ward: the climax should be conceived first 
and the whole story should be built upon that, 
should lead up to it and subserve its purpose. 
An excellent example of a fine story injured, 
though not ruined, by a weak ending that 
trails off ineffectively is The Assault of Wings, 
by Charles G. D. Roberts. 1 An aviator starts 
out to explore a "bottomless" lake on the 

1 Smart Set, May, 1914. 
[103] 



The Contemporary Short Story 

top of a mountain. Some eagles oppose his 
venture and make things very interesting for 
him. The battle with them is evidently the 
climax; and Mr. Roberts describes it vividly. 
After that, the reader is not likely to care 
much about the aviator's original purpose to 
explore the lake. A well-constructed short 
story should end very quickly after the climax. 
But the author has added this long passage and 
thereby injured his effect: 

MacCreedy watched them [the eagles] go, and dropped 
his weapon back into the kit. Then he went over his 
precious machine minutely, to assure himself that it had 
sustained no damage except that slit in one wing, which 
was not enough to give serious trouble. Then, with a 
rush of exultation, he ran over to examine the mysterious 
pool. He found it beautiful enough, in its crystal-clear 
austerity; but, alas, its utter clearness was all that was 
needed to shatter its chief mystery. It was deep, indeed; 
but it was certainly not bottomless, for he could discern 
its bottom, from one shore or the other, in every part. 
He contented himself, however, with the thought that 
there was mystery enough for the most exacting in the 
mere existence of this deep and brimming tarn on the 
crest of a granite peak. As far as he could judge from his 
reading, which was extensive, this smooth, flat granite 
top of Bald Face, with its little pinnacle at one end, and 
its deep, transparent tarn in the center, was unlike any 
other known summit in the world. He was contented 

[104] 



Structure 

with his explorations, and ready now to return and tell 
about them. 

But if content with his explorations, he was far from 
content on the score of his adventure with the eagles. 
He felt that it had been rather more of a close call than it 
appeared; and there was nothing he desired less than an 
immediate repetition of it. What he dreaded was that 
the starting of the motor might revive the fears of the 
great birds in regard to their nests, and bring them once 
more swooping upon him. He traversed the circuit of 
the plateau, peering downward anxiously, and at last 
managed roughly to locate the three nests. They were 
all on the south and southeast faces of the summit. Well, 
he decided that he would get off as directly and swiftly 
as possible, and by way of the northwest front — and by 
this self-effacing attitude he trusted to convince the 
touchy birds that he had no wish to trespass upon their 
domesticity. 

He allowed himself all too brief a run, and the plane 
got into the air but a few feet before reaching the brink. 
[Here evidently is a sort of secondary climax or moment 
of excitement.] So narrow a margin was it, indeed, that 
he caught his breath with a gasp before she lifted. It 
looked as if he were going to dive into space. But he rose 
instead — and as he sailed out triumphantly across the 
abyss the eagles came flapping up over the rim of the 
plateau behind. They saw that he was departing, so 
they sank again to their eyries, and congratulated them- 
selves on having driven him away. A few minutes later, 
at an unprovocative height he swept around and headed 
for home. As he came into view once more to the anxious 
watchers in the automobile, who had been worried over his 

[105] 



The Contemporary Short Story 

long disappearance, the car turned and raced back over 

the plain to X , ambitious to arrive before him and 

herald his triumph. The fact that that triumph was 
not altogether an unqualified one remained a secret be- 
tween MacCreedy and the eagles. 

There is no big dramatic moment very near 
the close, nothing for the story to rest upon 
securely. It "just ends"; it does not really 
conclude. But Mr. Roberts is not often guilty 
of so feeble a terminal effect. In most of his 
work he is a good deal of an artist. 

Most short stories that come into the busy 
editor's office can be judged rapidly and yet 
justly by a glance at the introduction and the 
conclusion. If there is no effective climax, 
there is no story — no matter how much "fine 
writing" may have been wasted on the inter- 
vening pages. Few beginners who have not 
made a study of structure have any idea how 
important it is to get an effective and to some 
extent original closing scene, and then build 
the tale upon it. Even after conscious study, 
if a writer masters short-story structure in three 
years he may consider himself fortunate. His 
masterpieces, if he produces any, are likely to be 
the result of a process similar to that ascribed to 
the creative force of Nature by Robert Burns: 

[106] 



Structure 

"Her prentice han' she try'd on man, 
An' then she made the lasses, O." 

If he can finally attain a beauty of structure 
resembling the beautiful lines of that sculptured 
Venus in the Louvre before which generation 
after generation has bowed to worship, he may 
write himself down an artist. Colors without 
lines, "purple patches" of brilliant writing 
without structure, will never make anyone a 
master of the short story. 

The most effective close is that which has 
some tinge of the unexpected. A complete 
surprise, such as Maupassant achieves in The 
Necklace and Aldrich in Marjorie Daw, cannot 
always be hoped for; and editors do not expect 
it. But how artistic and poignant is the effect 
in The Necklace! The poor wife has toiled like 
a common drudge through ten cheerless years. 
And for what? To pay, by the most sordid 
economies, for a silently purchased substitute 
for a borrowed and lost necklace, the diamonds 
of which, as she finally learns from the friend 
who had lent it, were paste ! It all comes upon 
the reader like a flood; and there, without an 
added word, ends the story: 

"You remember that diamond necklace that you lent 
me to wear at the Ministry ball?" 

[1071 



The Contemporary Short Story 

"Yes. What then?" 

"Well, I lost it." 

"Lost it? Why, you brought it back to me!" 

"I brought you another just like it. And it has taken 
us ten years to pay for it. It was not easy for us, you 
will understand, since we had next to nothing. At last 
it is done, and I can tell you, I am glad!" 

Mme. Forester divined the secret. 

"You say you bought a diamond necklace to replace 
mine?" 

"Yes. You didn't notice it, did you? They were so 
like!" 

And she smiled with a proud and naive joy. 

Deeply moved, Mme. Forester took both her hands. 

"Oh, my poor Mathilde! Why, mine was false. At 
most it was worth only five hundred francs!" 

0. Henry is famous for his surprise endings, 
often humorous ones. As Professor Stuart P. 
Sherman has well phrased it, 1 "His plots are 
very craftily premeditated, and are notable 
for terminal surprises, which, like an electric 
button, suddenly flash an unexpected illumina- 
tion from end to end of the story. His surprises, 
furthermore, are not generally dependent upon 
arbitrary arrangements of external circumstances 
but upon shifts and twists in the feelings and 
ideas of the human agents." 

A remarkably dramatic surprise is flashed 

1 A Book of Short Stories, p. 334. 

[108] 



Structure 

upon the reader at the close of Conan Doyle's 
very brief tale, How It Happened, 1 which is 
told by a "medium." The theme is a motor- 
car smash: 

Going at fifty miles an hour, my right front wheel 
struck full on the right-hand pillar of my own gate. I 
heard the crash. I was conscious of flying through the 
air, and then — and then — ! 

When I became aware of my own existence once more 
I was among some brushwood in the shadow of the oaks 
upon the lodge side of the drive. A man was standing 
beside me. I imagined at first that it was Perkins, but 
when I looked again I saw that it was Stanley, a man 
whom I had known at college some years before, and for 
whom I had a really genuine affection. . . . 

"No pain, of course?" said he. 

"None," said I. 

"There never is," said he. 

And then suddenly a wave of amazement passed over 
me. Stanley! Stanley! Why, Stanley had surely died 
of enteric at Bloemfontein in the Boer War! 

"Stanley!" I cried, and the words seemed to choke my 
throat — "Stanley, you are dead." 

He looked at me with the same old gentle, wistful 
smile. 

"So are you," he answered. 

The Uncle Abner tales of Melville Davisson 
Post, which have been printed in the Saturday 

1 Strand, October; 1913. 
[109] 



The Contemporary Short Story 

Evening Post, the Metropolitan, and the Red 
Book, and later collected in book form, are also 
good examples of the unexpected and highly 
dramatic ending — which is usually demanded 
in all mystery and detective stories. Mr. Post's 
studies of the workings of conscience and of 
Uncle Abner's almost uncanny insight into these 
workings are sometimes quite worthy of Haw- 
thorne. The Sherlock Holmes tales are, of 
course, even more familiar examples of suspense 
and surprise, particularly that remarkably dra- 
matic and horrifying narrative, The Adventure 
of the Speckled Band, in which a serpent figures. 
As a "thriller," this is a model. 

A mastery of atmosphere contributes greatly 
to the success of Mr. Post and of Sir Arthur 
Conan Doyle. Stevenson, apropos of atmos- 
phere, said: 

There are, so far as I know, three ways, and three 
ways only, of writing a story. You may take a plot and 
fit characters to it, or you may take a character and 
choose incidents and situations to develop it, or lastly . . . 
you may take a certain atmosphere and get actions and 
persons to realize and express it. I'll give you an ex- 
ample — The Merry Men. There I began with the feel- 
ing of one of those islands on the west coast of Scotland, 
and I gradually developed the story to express the sen- 
timent with which the coast affected me. 

[110] 



Structure 

Poe had a fairly hypnotic power of at- 
mosphere. Impressionable young persons are 
warned not to read his most creepy tales just 
before going to bed. They seem fairly to 
photograph themselves upon the brain. Once 
in his atmosphere, you are never out of it until 
the end of the story; he maintains perfect 
unity of mood. 

From the viewpoint of structure, the opening 
of a story is worthy of considerable attention. 
It may be an essay-like opening, as in some 
of the tales of 0. Henry and Kipling, or swift 
and direct, as in Poe's The Cash of Amontillado: 

The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I 
best could; but when he ventured upon insult, I vowed 
revenge. You, who know so well the nature of my soul, 
will not suppose, however, that I gave utterance to a 
threat. At length I would be avenged; this was a point 
definitively settled — but the very definitiveness with 
which it was resolved precluded the idea of risk. I must 
not only punish, but punish with impunity. 

This perhaps gains vividness from being told 
in the first person; but no general rule can 
be given as to the comparative advantages 
of first and third person — nor as to the letter 
method and various others. Some authors are 
fond of a particular method and work most 

[111] 



The Contemporary Short Story 

easily and naturally in it; but the beginner had 
better beware of clinging to one exclusively. 
Experiment will determine how much variety 
is wise — or possible. 

Here is the first paragraph of The Man Who 
Would Be King — reflective, yet coming swiftly 
to the point: 

The Law, as quoted [in a prefatory line, "Brother to 
a Prince and fellow to a beggar if he be found worthy"]], 
lays down a fair conduct of life, and one not easy to fol- 
low. I have been fellow to a beggar again and again 
under circumstances which prevented either of us find- 
ing out whether the other was worthy. I have still to 
be brother to a Prince, though I once came near to 
kinship with what might have been a veritable King and 
was promised the reversion of a Kingdom — army, law- 
courts, revenue and policy all complete. But, today, I 
greatly fear that my King is dead, and if I want a crown 
I must go hunt for it myself. 

The opening of Stevenson's Will o 9 the Mill, 
a character story, is very leisurely and descrip- 
tive, as befits its subject. That of O. Henry's 
Phoebe 1 is in dialogue and states the theme in 
very few words : 

"You are a man of many novel adventures and varied 
enterprises," I said to Captain Patricio Malone. "Do 
you believe that the possible element of good luck or bad 
1 In Roads of Destiny. 

[112] 



Structure 

luck — if there is such a thing as luck — has influenced 
your career or persisted for or against you to such an 
extent that you were forced to attribute results to the 
operation of the aforesaid good luck or bad luck?" 

The following beginning is unusually abrupt 
but effective — from Without Benefit of Clergy: 

"But if it be a girl?" 

"Lord of my life, it cannot be. I have prayed for so 
many nights, and sent gifts to Sheikh Badi's shrine so 
often, that I know God will give us a son — a man-child 
that shall grow into a man." 

Freeman Tilden's story, Prison-Made, 1 de- 
scribes the activities of a "prison poet" who 
got into a penitentiary in order to gain publicity. 
He came from the Greenwich Village colony 
in New York City, and so the tale opens appro- 
priately with a humorous characterization of 
that region. Anyone who reads the entire story 
will see that the introduction, although it is 
almost a little essay in itself, is not superfluous. 2 

The Latin Quarter has been called "the Greenwich 
Village of Paris." There is a considerable similarity 
between the two neighborhoods. In both is to be found 
a curious intermingling of petty shopkeeping and the 

1 In That Night, and Other Satires. Hearst's International Library Co. 

2 For a similar introduction, see the quotation from Fannie Hurst's 
The Spring Song, pp. 219-220. 

[113] 



The Contemporary Short Story 

arts. They are both incubators of genius — chuck full 
of eggs. 

American tourists should see Greenwich Village first. 
In the quantity of artistic effort, it rises superior to its 
French rival. Here in this little corner of New York, 
stowed away between Sixth Avenue and the Hudson, is 
the center of the magazine industry of America. It has 
been estimated: 

That the amount of 8| x 11 typewriter paper consumed 
in Greenwich Village every year, if piled up, would mount 
to the astonishing height of seven and one-third miles. 

That the total foot-pounds of energy expended in hit- 
ting typewriter keys in Greenwich Village in a year would 
be sufficient to light New York, Paris, Berlin, and London 
with electricity. 

That if one day's manuscripts were withheld from the 
Greenwich Village post office, half the entire postal em- 
ployees of New York would be thrown into idleness. 

It has been said, though without much foundation, 
that when good Americans die they go to Paris. It can 
be said, with far greater conviction, that when American 
manuscripts are rejected, they go back to Greenwich 
Village. 

As an example of an introduction which 
plunges in medias res, this is a good one, from 
Donn Byrne's prize-fight story, A Man's Game: l 

They might have kept their eight thousand dollars, 
Doran thought bitterly, as he went back to his corner 

1 The Popular Magazine. Reprinted in Stories Without Women. 
Hearst's International Library Co. 

[114] 



Structure 

after the first round; they might have kept their eight 
thousand in their pockets. If he hadn't agreed to lie 
down in the twelfth round, he would have been put out 
in the eighth. Good heavens! Couldn't they have left 
him at home in peace, and not have brought him back 
to shame and humiliation tonight? 

The amateur can almost always be distin- 
guished from the professional by his clumsi- 
ness in opening a story. His introduction will 
lack distinction; it will generally be either too 
colorless or too ambitious. In any case, it will 
not strike a sure note. Often it will be too long 
and will not be an integral part of the story. 
The athlete who displays "form" in the hundred- 
yard dash, who runs so gracefully that it is a 
delight to watch him, has acquired this form 
by long practice under good coaching. The 
same must be true of the short-story writer. 
Distinction, in any art, is not to be acquired 
overnight. 

One successful writer of magazine stories 
tells me that she often rewrites a tale three or 
four times — not merely for changes in phrase- 
ology, but structural changes which involve 
the whole skeleton of the story. She sees a 
new twist at the climax which improves the 
surprise, or a more effective way of starting the 

[115] 



The Contemporary Short Story 

tale, or a swifter and surer method of develop- 
ing the theme. Since this author, Miss Dana 
Gatlin, has had stories in the Cosmopolitan, 
McClure's, the Century, Collier's, and the Amer- 
ican, it is evident that her painstaking pays. 
Robert Burns said of his poems that they were 
the result of easy composition but laborious 
revision. Their ease and naturalness are the 
product of careful art, not of a rapid and careless 
pen. "Easy writing," as the English orator, 
Fox, remarked, "makes damned hard reading!" 
Although in any good short story there must 
be incident — action — there must not be too 
many incidents. A common mistake of amateurs 
is to crowd into one story enough happenings 
to serve for two or three. I recall one manu- 
script, good in many respects, which contained 
at least four important incidents, two of them 
easily separable, because not essential to the 
main purpose of the narrative. They were 
random incidents, illustrating the mischievous 
habits of schoolboys. The story was a mere 
assembling of materials, not a structure. No 
unified impression could be produced. Another 
writer, who has had stories in important maga- 
zines like the Metropolitan and Collier's, finds 
it difficult to get within a 10,000-word limit, 

[116] 



Structure 

largely also for the same reason — that he has 
too many incidents, an embarras de richesse. 
He has not learned how to remove surplusage. 

A successful novelist wrote a short story in 
which two important incidents of about equal 
value divided the reader's interest near the 
close of the tale. Either would have made an 
effective climax. And they did not depend on 
each other. In one a little girl did something 
to her own hair to produce a comic effect; in 
the other she told to a reporter over the 'phone 
a frank but humorous story of an engagement. 
When the second incident was removed, unity 
of effect resulted and the story was structurally 
successful. The trouble with many efficient 
performers who do not know the rules of the 
game is that, in football parlance, they don't 
stop and touch the ball down when they have 
crossed the goal line, but like Ole Skjarsen 
in one of George Fitch's most diverting stories, 
they keep right on running wild across the 
country. 

There may legitimately be several incidents 
in a short story, provided they are related. In 
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, which despite its 
length is essentially a short story in purpose and 
effect, one can clearly perceive this relation of 

[117] 



The Contemporary Short Story 

incidents. The tale depicts what any good 
story depicts — a struggle in which every hap- 
pening has an influence on the final outcome. 
All that is needed to make a good plot, as Aris- 
totle pointed out, is a tying of the knot and 
an untying — a complication and a denouement. 
In a drama or a novel there is room for elaborate 
complication, as illustrated in Othello, the best 
constructed of Shakespeare's plays; but in a 
short story simplicity of structure must prevail. 
In Hawthorne's The Ambitious Guest there is, 
if we except the arrival of the stranger at the 
house, only one incident. Yet this is one of the 
best of Hawthorne's tales. 

The lack of clearness which many readers 
complain of in Kipling and other notable story 
writers is not due to faulty structure. It is 
due to the use of suggestion rather than direct 
information; and suggestion is a necessity in 
the short story. Without it there can be 
no suspense. Much as the short story has been 
decried by cloistered critics in universities and 
in the New York Nation on the ground that it 
requires no exercise of mentality from the reader, 
it is nevertheless true that disputes over the 
meaning of a good short story are frequent. 
Behind the best tales of Kipling and Poe and 

[118] 



Structure 

Hawthorne there is good hard thinking. Kip- 
ling's They is not understood in its entirety by 
one reader in ten. Yet it is almost a perfect 
story. People absorbed in material things, 
especially in the making of money, are likely 
to find such masterpieces difficult. Founded 
on a blind and childless woman's intense love 
for children, this story They proposes the as- 
tounding theory of her ability to gather around 
her, on her wonderfully beautiful English estate, 
the visible ghosts of dead children. A motor- 
car plays a very realistic role in the plot, and a 
father who had lost a child is concerned in an 
especially touching incident. For such a story 
a reader with unusual imagination and sympathy 
is required. But, once understood, no story of 
Kipling's is more moving. 

Another exaggerated example of short-story 
obscurity — and an exaggerated example always 
makes a point clearer than does an average one 
— is Kipling's The Brushwood Boy. A young 
English soldier, of good family, falls in love at 
first sight — or hearing, rather — with an Eng- 
lish girl who, as he is passing through the gardens 
after a muddy tramp in the country, is singing 
within the house, at which she is a guest, a 
beautiful lyric, Over the Edge of the Purple Down. 

[119] 



The Contemporary Short Story 

He falls in love with her for the reason that cer- 
tain obscure geographical references in her song 
show that she is the heroine of the strange 
dreams which he has had on various nights for 
several years. Obviously, then, she has had 
similar dreams and knows him in this dream- 
world, of which he, with an admirable touch 
of nature which reveals Kipling's insight into 
humanity, has made a rough map in the most 
matter-of-fact way. Curiously enough, it turns 
out that they have both named the places alike. 
Hence, having long been lovers in these peculiar 
dreams, which in all important respects exactly 
correspond to each other, what more natural 
than that they should become lovers in real 
life? 

In detective tales, suggestion is especially 
important. Note the effect of the following, 
for example, from Poe's The Gold-Bug: 

He received the paper very peevishly, and was about 
to crumple it, apparently to throw it in the fire, when a 
casual glance at the design seemed suddenly to rivet his 
attention. In an instant his face grew violently red, — 
in another as excessively pale. For some minutes he 
continued to scrutinize the drawing minutely where he 
sat. At length he arose, took a candle from the table, 
and proceeded to seat himself upon a sea-chest in the 
farthest corner of the room. Here again he made an 

[120] 



Structure 

anxious examination of the paper, turning it in all direc- 
tions. He said nothing, however, and his conduct greatly 
astonished me; yet I thought it prudent not to exacerbate 
the growing moodiness of his temper by any comment. 
Presently he took from his coat-pocket a wallet, placed 
the paper carefully in it, and deposited both in a writing- 
desk, which he locked. He now grew more composed in 
his demeanor; but his original air of enthusiasm had 
quite disappeared. 

The Sherlock Holmes tales are full of such 
suggestions, to heighten the suspense. The 
description of the ventilator in the room where 
a woman had been mysteriously murdered l is 
an instance in point; and another is the curious 
advertisement 2 for men with red hair. An 
excellent example of a tale which contains a 
large number of passages of suggestion is Henry 
James' remarkable ghost story, The Turn of 
the Screw. 3 This portrays the influence of the 
spirits of a dead manservant and a governess 
upon the characters of a young boy and a young 
girl and the efforts of their living governess to 
combat this influence. In their lives, the two 
servants had been disreputable and after their 
deaths they tried to keep up their evil ascend- 
ancy over the children. Until the startling 

1 In The Speckled Band. 2 In The Red-Headed League. 

3 In The Two Magics. 

[121] 



The Contemporary Short Story 

climax the reader is puzzled to make out just 
what is the nature and extent of this super- 
natural power. The result is a story of rare 
suspense and impressionism. It affords proof 
that Mr. James, when he wished, could write 
a tale in which genuine story-interest is strong. 
He has not strayed off into over-subtle analysis 
of character and motive; there is progress from 
the first page to the last. Even persons to whom 
the mention of Henry James is a red rag will 
do well to peruse this little masterpiece, which 
may profitably be compared with Kipling's 
They and Jacobs' The Monkey's Paw. 

When skilfully employed, suggestion puzzles 
the reader without irritating him. When clum- 
sily used, it deliberately throws him off the track 
and, at the close of the story, is seen to be illogical 
and absurd. This is bad structure — dishonest 
structure. The tales of Arthur B. Reeve are 
not free from this defect; but Poe, and generally 
Conan Doyle, are severely logical. To follow 
their mysteries is a keen technical pleasure. 
Suggestion without revelation is essential to 
that suspense which all good narrative pos- 
sesses. In the magazines of largest circulation 
it will be noted that suggestion is used spar- 
ingly in most of the stories. This is due to the 

[122] 






Structure 

average subscriber's dislike of anything not 
clear. He may forgive it on account of the 
aid to suspense; but he will not appreciate 
fully a frequent use of it. It is hard for this 
commonplace person to realize that a great 
short story is not a bureau of information. He 
ought to delight in using his mother wit to dis- 
cern what is between the lines; but, of course, 
if he lacks the wit he must be regaled with sim- 
pler and clearer narrative. It is generally un- 
safe to assume his delight in subtle suggestion, 
except in a mystery tale. 

The first reading of a masterpiece, even a 
play of Shakespeare's, has a fascination which 
can never be recaptured — the fascination of 
not knowing what is coming next. In order 
to enjoy to the full a Shakespearean play on the 
stage, try one which you have never read. 
You will be surprised at the pleasure derived 
merely from unfamiliarity with the plot. This 
unfamiliarity is essential to any good short 
story. And it is skilful structure which causes 
the pleasure. 1 

The office of dialogue in structure may per- 
haps be best indicated by the fact that a very 

1 Anyone who wishes to delve deeply into the subject of structure, 
from the dramatic standpoint, will find material in Professor George 
P. Baker's treatise, The Development of Shakespeare as a Dramatist. 

[123] 



The Contemporary Short Story 

large proportion of the average modern story is 
told by means of dialogue. Some, indeed, are 
so nearly dramatic in form that they can be 
transferred to the stage with surprisingly few 
changes. Poe got along with only a small 
proportion of dialogue, but Poe had very little 
dramatic ability. He was more interested in 
situations and climaxes than in his characters. 
Kipling relies mainly on the talk of his char- 
acters for the progress and development of his 
stories. So does W. W. Jacobs. The opening 
of his tale, Sam's Ghost, shows his usual skill 
in introducing action and arousing keen interest 
in character: 1 

"Yes, I know," said the night watchman, thoughtfully, 
as he sat with a cold pipe in his mouth gazing across the 
river, "I've 'eard it afore. People tell me they don't 
believe in ghosts and make a laugh of 'em, and all I say 
is: let them take on a night watchman's job. Let 'em 
sit 'ere all alone of a night with the water lapping against 
the posts and the wind moaning in the corners; especially 
if a pal of theirs has slipped overboard and there's little 
nasty bills stuck up just outside in the High Street offering 
a reward for the body. Twice men 'ave fallen over- 
board from this jetty, and I've 'ad to stand my watch 
here the same night and not a farthing more for it. 

"One of the worst and awfulest ghosts I ever 'ad any- 
thing to do with was Sam Briggs. He was a waterman at 
1 Metropolitan, June, 1916. 
[124] 



Structure 

the stairs near by 'ere; the sort o' man that 'ud get you 
to pay for drinks, and drink yours up by mistake arter he 
'ad finished his own. The sort of man that 'ud always 
leave his baccy box at 'ome, but always 'ad a big pipe in 
'is pocket. 

"He fell overboard off a lighter one evening, and all 
that his mates could save was 'is cap. It was only two 
nights afore that he 'ad knocked down an old man and 
bit a policeman's little finger to the bone, so that as they 
pointed out to the widder, p'raps he was taken for a wise 
purpose. P'raps he was 'appier where he was than doing 
six months. 

"'He was the sort o' chap that'll make himself 'appy 
anywhere ,' ses one of 'em comforting-like. 

" 'Not without me,' ses Mrs. Briggs, sobbing and wiping 
her eyes on something she used for a pocket handkercher. 
'He never could bear to be away from me. Was there 
no last words?' 

"Only one,' ses one o' the chaps, Joe Peel by name. 

"As 'e fell overboard,' ses the other." 

This story, told in the first person by the au- 
thor's familiar character, the night watchman, 
gives the effect of a monologue plus dialogue. 
The advantage is the greater naturalness 
obtainable by a born story-teller through this 
method. It also brings the short story still 
closer to the drama than ordinarily. In his 
humorous tales Mr. Jacobs uses this first-person 
method very frequently. 

[125] 



The Contemporary Short Story 

This author has that utmost cunning of art 
which produces the effect of nature. A casual 
reading of one of his stories is not likely to reveal 
the surpassing skill in almost every speech and 
even every phrase. His characters talk with 
such absolute naturalness and his story pro- 
gresses so rapidly to its goal — generally in 
about three thousand words — that the young 
writer may be deceived into thinking that all 
this must be very easy if one has a natural turn 
for it. The fact is, of course, that it is the 
result of much study and much painstaking. 
Charles E. Van Loan's praiseworthy naturalness 
in dialogue is also very deceptive. The story 
seems to be talked off as casually and readily 
as in real life; but if one looks carefully at the 
structure one sees that the whole is artfully 
planned and skilfully executed. His volume 
of short stories, Buck Parvin and the Movies, 
is well worth examining with care for the means 
by which naturalness and effectiveness in dia- 
logue are secured. 

Artificial, melodramatic talk is not always 
readily recognized by the average reader, if 
covered up by sentiment and an exciting plot. 
Mr. Julian Street has performed a valuable 
service by satirizing this sort of dialogue in his 

[126] 






Structure 

burlesque sex story, Living up to Letchwood. 1 
The insincerity and melodrama of much third- 
rate fiction are well brought out in the following 
passage — which certainly does not lack action: 

There followed one of those idyllic Letchwood con- 
versations, in which they pretended, fancifully, that they 
were the only man and woman in the world. Then 
something seemed to snap within him. He tried to 
control himself, and to that end dug his finger-nails into 
his palms. He told himself that he had seen her only 
twice; that he had never spoken to her until now; that 
the feelings which surged through him were nothing short 
of madness — sheer madness ! And yet — a great wave 
of longing swept over him. 

"Lorette!" he burst out passionately. "I love you! 
We are meant for each other! You know it! I saw it in 
your eyes when we first met!" 

"Don't!" she whispered, going white. 

"It was bound to come!" he cried, his deep, well-bred 
voice throbbing with suppressed passion. "It is Fate! 
You love me! Tell me that you love me!" . . . 

"And to think," he whispered, "that to me you are 
only Lorette! That I do not even know your name!" 

At that she stiffened suddenly within his strong em- 
brace. The smile vanished from her lips; a look of an- 
guish came into her eyes. "My name!" she sobbed. 
"I had forgotten that — forgotten all! This is only a 
dream! Let me go! Tell me it is only a dream ! " 

He released her. Panting, she leaned against a tree. 

1 Everybody's, July, 1914. 

[127] 



The Contemporary Short Story 

"What is it?" he cried in alarm. "Speak, Lorette!" 

"My name!" she wept. "That brings it all back! 
Can't you see? Can't you guess?" 

"No! For God's sake, speak!" 

Trembling terribly, she drew herself together. "My 
name," she said slowly, "is Lorette Coventry!" 

"Ah, no!" cried Desbarets, an icy chill running through 
his body. "You cannot mean that you are — " He 
could not utter the rest. 

She inclined her head. 

"Heaven help me!" she said. "It is true. I am 
David Coventry's wife!" 

Before her eyes he seemed to wither, like a man sud- 
denly grown old. His broad shoulders drooped. He 
leaned his weight against a tree-trunk. Slowly he raised 
one of his gloved hands and removed the fashionable 
hat from his bowed head. Then in choking tones he 
spoke two words: 

"Good-by!" 

"Good-by!" Her voice was like a dying breath. 

This bears a recognizable resemblance to some 
of the recent work of a certain sex-story writer 
and his school. This author has been described, 
in the austere pages of the New York Nation, 
as the servant girl's novelist. 

The portrayal of character through dialogue 
is admirably illustrated in a passage from a 
story previously alluded to, Henry C. Row- 
land's The Copy-Cat: 1 

1 Saturday Evening Post, May 18, 1907. 
[128] 



Structure 

"Oncet I was well-to-do, Jake," he began complain- 
ingly. "Me and a feller named Hank worked a claim 
that would ha' made our fortun's in a year. I did most 
o' the work an' Hank he sorter looked after things an' 
saw we wa'n't interfered with. If ever I was a bit down 
I'd kinder git a line on how Hank tuk things an' that 'ud 
buck me up. He was a driver, he was" — Bill's face 
lighted — "but he done me in the end!" He sighed. 

"Course he did!" growled Jake. "He'd ha' bin a 
plum' fool if he hadn't ha'." 

"When I was a young 'un," Bill pursued, "they useter 
call me the Copy-Cat, becuz if I was left alone I alius 
seemed to kinder peter out. But jes' so long as they 
was some 'un I cud watch and copy like I was all right." 

"You're a jelly-fish — that's what you are!" grunted 
Jake. "Copy-Cat — Copy-Cat — and a good name for 
ye, too!" 

"I reckon it is, Jake," sighed Bill. "The funny part 
of it was that when I was a-copyin' some other feller 
like as not I'd do what he was a-doin' better'n what he 
cud. I cud lick any feller on the mountain jes' so long as 
he kept a-whalin' me and kep' his mad up, but without 
that I'd sorter wilt like." 

In the following passage from Donn Byrne's 
story, Graft, 1 there is a combination of char- 
acterization with a prophecy of the outcome: 

A few of the men seemed contemptuous toward him, a 

few seemed furtive in their nodded greeting, as though he 

were a person not to be known, a few were frankly de- 

1 Saturday Evening Post, April 22, 1916. 

[129] 



The Contemporary Short Story 

sirous of not seeing him. A pale, hawk-faced lawyer with 
a breezy Western client by his side nodded in response 
to Trainor's pleasant smile. 

"Who is it?" the client asked. 

"Oh, that?" the lawyer queried. A little yawn of 
distaste showed on his face. "That's John Trainor, the 
purchasing agent for the Azure Star Line." 

"What's wrong with him?" the Westerner smiled. 
"You made a face like a kid taking medicine. What's 
up?". 

"Well" — the lawyer spat the words in disgust — "if 
you want to know, that's the damnedest grafter, liar and 
thief in the city. He's not even a big one. He's a cheap 
piker." He shook his head. "And the queer part of it 
is that ten years ago he used to be one of the decentest 
fellows in the world." 

"Grows on you like dope," the client nodded. 

"You've got it," the lawyer turned to him. "You've 
laid your finger on it. That man doesn't know how deep 
in it he is. Some of these days he's going to be caught 
with the goods, and then — good night!" 

Past action is briefly and deftly indicated 
in a passage from Corra Harris' Epsie of Blue 
Sky l — a passage which also exhibits the au- 
thor's philosophizing on life and her Biblical 
vein of sentiment: 

"The marigolds and zinnias are doing well this season," 
said Epsie, coming up the steps and seating herself beside 
me, with her apron filled with these coarse blossoms. 
1 Pictorial Review, April, 1916. 

[130] 



Structure 

"Epsie," I whispered, "it's awful to die without being 
married — if you are a woman!" 

"Yes," she answered simply. 

"Did you ever have a lover?" I asked. 

"No, not one that I could love," she answered softly. 

"But there was a lover?" I insisted. 

"Yes," she sighed, so low that I scarcely heard the 
whispered word. 

"Is he married now?" 

"No." 

"Dead?" 

"No." 

Thus we sat side by side, two women bereaved of 
love. I drew her hard brown hand into mine. I leaned 
forward and kissed her upon the cheek. As Cadmus in- 
troduced letters into Greece, so did I introduce kissing 
into the Meade household. I doubt if Epsie had kissed 
or been kissed for many a year. She started, stiffened, as 
if that little caress reminded her of something hidden and 
forbidden in her innocent breast. 

"Why didn't you marry him, dear?" I asked gently. 

"He is not a good man," she answered, turning her 
face from me. 

"But must a woman always marry a good man?" 

"If you marry one who is not good, you approve of 
him," she answered with stern simplicity. 

I was moved by this logic. It reminded me of that 
time long past, before my confirmation, when every act 
was either right or wrong, when there was no middle 
ground for my trembling young soul. I considered 
Carey. I saw him with Epsie's clear eyes, and with the 
innocent eyes of that girl I had been. He seemed to shrink 

[131] 



The Contemporary Short Story 

into a poor creature. He lost his brilliance, his insouci- 
ance. He became tinkling brass and the world's sound- 
ing cymbals. 

The directness and economy of this dialogue 
are worthy of close study. It illustrates the 
rule that there should be no talk for talk's sake. 
Here every stroke counts, every word is for a 
purpose. Good dialogue always shows this 
economy and artistry. 

In the following passage from Mary Synon's 
The Bounty -Jumper, 1 the problem of the story 
is stated in dialogue: 

The boy turned from his strained watching of his father's 
face to read the letter. It was the official notification of 
the Senate's confirmation of the President's appointment 
of James Thorold as ambassador to the Court of St. 
Jerome. 

"Why, father!" Incredulity heightened the boyish- 
ness in Peter's tone. 

James Thorold wheeled around until he faced him. 
"Peter," he said huskily, "there's something you'll have 
to know before I go to Forsland — if ever I go to Fors- 
land. You'll have to decide." 

The boy shrank from the ominous cadence of the words. 
"Why, I can't judge for you, dad," he said awkwardly. 

"Our children are always our ultimate judges," James 
Thorold said. 

1 Scribners, February, 1915. Reprinted in The Best Short Stories of 
1915. Small, Maynard & Co. 

[132] 



Structure 

This noble tale of American patriotism is 
worthy of careful perusal both for its artistry 
and its basis of thought. There is not much 
outward action in it, but a good deal of struggle 
in those ultimate empires, the affections and the 
conscience. 

In mastering structure, as in mastering any- 
thing worth while, no substitute has yet been 
discovered for hard work. If you are a begin- 
ner and are not afraid of work, transcribe a few 
tales which by virtually all critics are voted 
masterly in structure and in phraseology. You 
will find that you can become intimately ac- 
quainted with an author's methods and diction 
by this simple process — which forces you to 
look closely at things that, in mere reading, you 
pass by or only half perceive. Some of the best 
models for this purpose are Maupassant's The 
Necklace, Poe's The Cask of Amontillado, Haw- 
thorne's The Ambitious Guest, Stevenson's The 
Sire de Maletroifs Door, Kipling's The Man 
Who Was, W. W. Jacobs' The Monkey's Paw, 
and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Adventure 
of the Speckled Band. 1 

The form, the structure of the short story — 

1 For the volumes in which these stories are contained see the Ap- 
pendix, pages 258-263. 

[133] 



The Contemporary Short Story 

even of some of the masterpieces just mentioned 
— may seem to be highly artificial; and so, in 
a certain sense, it is. Some of the most beautiful 
verse-forms, such as the Italian sonnet, the trio- 
let, and the rondeau, are open to the same 
criticism. The placing of the climax at the 
very end of the story may be artificial. Things 
seldom happen so in real life, you say. Exist- 
ence is not, after all, a succession of supreme 
moments; it is not spent at continual high 
pressure. Naturalness seems to be sacrificed 
to power. Characters are shown for only an 
hour, or a day, or in brief, lightning-like glimpses 
for a few months. There is none of the com- 
plexity of genuine life. Problems are simplified 
beyond the mathematical limit. There is too 
much isolation, segregration for literary experi- 
ments. Well — all these accusations have some 
weight. And yet the total effect of one of 
Stevenson's stories, or Hawthorne's, or Kip- 
ling's, is not an effect of artificiality. They 
have achieved nature through an artificial form. 
All art, of course, is merely representative, is 
in some sense artificial — "nature to advantage 
drest." The short story form is indeed highly 
artificial; but when the master weaves his 
tale upon this form the result is something very 

[134] 



- Structure 

different, something profoundly moving, as in 
Kipling's The Man Who Was, or eminently 
inspiring, as in Hawthorne's The Artist of the 
Beautiful. And this the artificial can never 
accomplish. The hack writer for the minor 
magazines may never rise above mere artifice; 
but the gifted and conscientious workman will 
achieve the convincing power of nature. 



EXERCISES 

1. Test a long story (8,000 or 9,000 words) in the 
Saturday Evening Post to discover whether any "com- 
ponent atom," in Poe's phrase, can be removed without 
injury to the plot or to the total effect. If you find any 
story of this length which is "padded," for the benefit of 
the advertising columns beside which the last part (the 
"hanger") of the tale is placed, copy the unnecessary 
passage or passages and present also an outline of the 
whole plot such as shall show why the said passage or 
passages are superfluous. Apply the same test to a few 
stories in other magazines which print advertising side 
by side with reading matter. Do you agree with Mr. 
Ward Muir that, in general, the American short story 
"is apt to spread itself and not sufficiently study economy 
of words, etc., in getting its effect" ? 

2. Which of the following stories strike the keynote 
sharply (as does The Fall of the House of Usher) in the 
opening paragraph? — On the Stairs, by Arthur Morrison 

[135] 



The Contemporary Short Story 

(in The World's Greatest Short Stories); The Man Who 
Would Be King, by Kipling (in the same volume); Rip 
van Winkle, by Irving (in the same volume); Phwbe, by 
O. Henry (in A Book of Short Stories); Morse Chan, by 
Thomas Nelson Page (in Short Stories for High Schools) ; 
The Triumph of Night, by Edith Wharton (in the same 
volume). Do those which do not strike this note sharply 
seem to you to be inferior? 

3. Name five short stories in which the central char- 
acter shows unusually strong will power; five in which 
there is a conflict between two characters of about equal 
will power. 

4. Describe briefly, or quote, three surprise endings 
from the stories of O. Henry; three from a current mag- 
azine of large circulation. In what respects, if any, are 
O. Henry's superior? Comment on the endings of Kip- 
ling's Without Benefit of Clergy, On Greenhow Hill, The 
Mark of the Beast, The City of Dreadful Night, The Man 
Who Was. All of these will be found in his greatest 
volume, Life's Handicap. 

5. Describe three stories which, like The Fall of 
the House of Usher, show that the author "may take a 
certain atmosphere and get actions and persons to ex- 
press it." Is this kind of story common in the current 
magazines? 

6. Mention two or more stories which obey the three 
unities of time, place, and action. What is the effect on 
you, as compared with the average story? Does this 
method restrict the author as much as in the drama 
in Ben Jonson's The Alchemist, for example? 

[136] 



Structure 

7. Give an example of a story-opening which plunges 
in medias res — which does not begin at the beginning, 
so to speak, but takes a good deal for granted. Does 
the author explain the preliminary events afterward? 
If so, where? 

8. From the standpoint of structure compare Dickens' 
A Christmas Carol (in its condensed form, 12,000 words 
— it was originally 50,000) with Poe's The Masque of the 
Red Death by making a structural outline of each. Do 
you find too many incidents in Dickens' tale? Com- 
ment on the unity in each story. 

9. Make a structural outline of Stevenson's The Sire 
de Maletroifs Door and of Kipling's The Man Who Was. 
(Both of these are in A Book of Short Stories.) In what 
respects do they show especial skill in structure? Can 
you name one of O. Henry's which reveals equal skill? 
One of Maupassant's? 

10. Point out several instances of "suggestion," or 
foreshadowing of the outcome, in a mystery tale — Henry 
James' The Turn of the Screw, for example (in The Two 
Magics). Do they enable you to guess the ending? 
Apply the same test to any of the Sherlock Holmes tales; 
to Poe's The Murders in the Rue Morgue and The Purloined 
Letter. 

11. Quote two passages of dialogue closely connected 
with the structure of a story. Do they advance the 
action rapidly? Explain past action? Lead up to the 
climax-close? Or in what other respects do they show 
structural skill? 

[137] 



The Contemporary Short Story 

12. O. Henry used to read all the New York Sunday 
papers in order to get material for stories. Try this 
yourself, and give at least one example of an item which 
would make a good climax upon which to build a short 
story. 

13. Give at least one example, from a current maga- 
zine, of a story which shows bad or mediocre structure 
redeemed by excellent character study or by some other 
important element which seems to have induced the 
editor to accept it in spite of the defects of structure. 

14. Stories with weak endings do not often gain en- 
trance to modern magazines; but see whether you can 
find one such — one in which the close seems inferior to 
the rest of the tale. What probably induced the editor 
to accept it? 

15. Passages of description are generally brief in a 
modern short story; but there are plenty of unneces- 
sarily long passages in the novels of Scott and Dickens. 
Find one or two and show why they are largely or 
wholly superfluous. Can you find any long passage in Kip- 
ling or Stevenson which could be condensed without loss? 

16. Find, among short stories written before Poe's 
(i.e., before 1830), three or more which do not obey the 
rule of the climax ending. Do they seem to lose anything 
in structural effect — or in general effect on the reader 
— by their neglect of modern technique? 

17. Do you prefer Stevenson as a novelist or as a short- 
story writer? Why? Apply the same test to Hawthorne 
and Kipling. Can you give any definite reasons why 
their technique is superior, in either literary form? 

[138] 



Structure 

18. Compare Maupassant's methods of structure, in 
half a dozen of his stories, with Kipling's; with O. 
Henry's; with W. W. Jacobs'; with Mary Wilkins- 
Freeman's. Note the length which each author seems 
to prefer. Point out any of their stories — if you can 
find any such — in which the framework or structure 
strikes you as being too artificial, in which it "shows 
through," so to speak. (Generally, in the case of these 
authors, something comparable to an X-ray analysis on 
the part of the student is necessary to detect the struc- 
tural skill; but the result is always worth the trouble.) 

19. Analyze three stories (by great writers like Kip- 
ling) which are not entirely clear to you at a first reading, 
in order to find out why they are difficult. Could they 
be made clearer without injury to the total effect? In 
other words, is the obscurity a necessity or a fault? 



[139] 



CHAPTER IV 

CHARACTER vs. PLOT 

It is not enough that Aristotle has said so, for Aris- 
totle drew his models of tragedy from Sophocles and 
Euripides; and, if he had seen ours, might have changed 
his mind. — John Dryden. 

The charm of all art will probably be found to be 
at bottom just this — it quickens and intensifies the 
sense of life. Art is the spontaneous yet ordered 
overflow of life. It knows no such thing as age. That 
is what makes it so precious to us men and women. 
For the one inevitable misfortune of life is to grow old; 
to feel the spring of our life less elastic, our perceptions 
less new and vivid, our joys less fresh, our anticipations 
less eager and confident. No added philosophy of 
life's afternoon can ever quite atone for the faded 
poetry of its morning. But it is the office of art to 
renew this early freshness of feeling in us. — C. T. 
Winchester, Some Principles of Literary Criticism. 1 

In a highly interesting and provocative article, 
The Blight, 2 Melville Davisson Post takes to 
task the "high-brows" of the thirty-flve-cent 
magazines and of certain examples of classic 
literature, for failure to provide exciting plots, 
for neglect of problem and mystery. He de- 

1 The Macmillan Co. 8 Saturday Evening Post, Dec. 26, 1914. 

[140] 






Character vs. Plot 

clares that, in a good short story, plot comes 
first and character second: 

It is a matter of profound regret that men of talent 
and culture in this country have got the idea, in order to 
distinguish themselves from the common run of writers, 
they must avoid the very elements essential to the highest 
form of literature. Because surprise in the plot and 
virile incident have the widest appeal, and are therefore 
usually undertaken by the unskilful, these men have de- 
termined to avoid them altogether. 

Alas! In doing so they abandon the highest forms of 
literature. . . . 

The basic element in the taste of the public is correct. 
The demand of the human mind for mystery or problem 
— something to unravel — is universal. It is the desire 
of everybody to know how persons will act in tragic situ- 
ations; how men of individuality and power in high places 
will conduct themselves under certain conditions of stress. 
We shall never cease to be interested in these things, 
and the author who presents them to us will have our 
attention. 

It has therefore happened in this country that the men 
who have had the foresight and courage to give the read- 
ing public these universal elements of interest in their 
fiction have built up great and prosperous publications, 
while those who have denied the public these elements of 
interest have fallen into bankruptcy. 

Resolute editors, refusing to be influenced by the 
pretensions of the smaller dilettante class, have been able 
to run the circulation of their periodicals into incredible 
figures. 

[141] 



The Contemporary Short Story 

This is specious reasoning; but, as in the case 
of Wordsworth's radical prefaces versus his best 
poems, Mr. Post's best stories do not illustrate 
his own theories. Without the remarkably im- 
pressive character of Uncle Abner, this author's 
excellent short stories of mystery and crime 
would fall apart like a house of cards. And, 
without the character of Sherlock Holmes — 
which is a real contribution to literature — 
Conan Doyle's detective tales would suffer the 
same fate. What we are principally interested 
in, after all, is not the "virile incidents" but the 
way in which "persons will act in tragic situa- 
tions" — or comic. In Shakespeare, of course, 
we find the supreme example of this. The dis- 
position to worship all elements in his plays is 
passing; but his characters need fear no test. 
Professor Brander Matthews 1 says that the 
central incidents of The Merchant of Venice 
are unconvincing, but that Shylock is an unfor- 
gettable figure. 

From an animated chorus of replies to Mr. 
Post's article — a chorus made possible by a 
symposium in the New York Sun 2 — I select 

1 A Study of the Drama, p. 153. 

2 Does Character Drawing or Plot Count More in Fiction ? April 17, 
1915. 

[142] 



Character vs. Plot 

first an admirable remark by that good crafts- 
man, Booth Tarkington: "It seems strange 
that he [Mr. Post] does not perceive the pro- 
founder interest of the mystery and surprise of 
character." Ah! there is the nub of the matter, 
stated with a felicity which we have learned to 
expect from Mr. Tarkington. The "mystery 
and surprise of character" is in truth the great 
spectacle of this human life of ours. Even the 
good business man will testify to that. In a 
given set of circumstances, how will a certain 
individual (and no other) act? That is what 
interests masters of the short story like Rud- 
yard Kipling and Guy de Maupassant, masters 
of the novel like Thackeray, and masters of the 
drama like Shakespeare. That is what gives 
us Stevenson's Markheim and Hawthorne's The 
Birthmark and Kipling's William the Conqueror 
and the excellent tales in Mr. Tarkington's 
own volumes, Penrod and Seventeen. It is what 
gives us Peter B. Kyne's The Three Godfathers, 
in the Saturday Evening Post (reprinted in 
book form); and it is what gave vogue to the 
Letters of a Self-Made Merchant to His Son, by 
the editor of the Post "Mystery and surprise," 
quotha! Why, you don't have to look farther 
than your next-door neighbor for that. 

[143] 



The Contemporary Short Story 

Probably most editors, if asked whether they 
insist upon strong character portrayal, would 
answer that they desire it and that they secure 
it as often as possible. The editor of Adventure, 
which might be expected to lay especial stress 
on plot and rapid action, states that what he is 
after is "clean stories of action with characters 
who are people, not mere names" And a fiction 
editor who has been in the business a good many 
years, in returning a very promising story to a 
young author, said: "We like this in many 
respects, but we shall have to ask for a little 
more emphasis on character." 

An interesting plot is one essential; but if 
it were the only thing, or the primary thing, 
could we reread for the tenth or the twentieth 
time the masterpieces of literature which all 
generations have voted great? Could a teacher 
of Shakespeare take up Hamlet with college 
classes for forty years, and bring to the final 
year the same enthusiasm as to the first? There 
seems to be, among fiction writers themselves, 
a pretty general agreement that Joseph Conrad 
is the greatest living master of fiction. Yet he 
is one of the most unworried as to the necessity 
for entertaining and carefully woven plots. 
His magnificent short story, Youth, can hardly 

[144] 



Character vs. Plot 

be said to have a plot at all; but as an impres- 
sion of the energy and romantic yearnings of a 
young man — of what Hazlitt called "the feel- 
ing of immortality in youth" — it is matchless. 
Here, however, the character is not so indi- 
vidualized as usual; it is typical, for a purpose. 
And, in general, Conrad owes his eminence 
quite as much to his wonderful atmosphere and 
his English style as to character portrayal. 
His Heart of Darkness is a dramatization of 
Nature, of the fascination and perils of tropical 
forests — although the degeneration of the char- 
acter of the white man who has spent years in 
these surroundings is, after all, probably the 
chief point of interest in the story. It may 
be admitted, however, that Joseph Conrad has 
not invaded the highly popular periodicals to 
any extent, in spite of the admiration which 
Gouverneur Morris, Harry Leon Wilson, and 
other successful invaders feel for his work. 

W. W. Jacobs, on the other hand, is popular. 
Yet he has seldom shown himself master of more 
than four plots, says Mr. Wilson, 1 and for some 
years has used not more than two. "But a 
lot of us would still tramp a long trail for a 
new Jacobs story." It is the springs of men's 

1 In the Sun symposium. 
[145] 



The Contemporary Short Story 

actions, treated from the humorous standpoint, 
that interest us in Mr. Jacobs' tales. There is 
an excellent balance, however, between plot 
and character; for, although his plots may 
lack variety, they show a deft construction and 
an economy of means that are of the school of 
Maupassant. One of Maupassant's own stories, 
A Coward, may be cited as an illustration 
of a tale that is, so to speak, all character — the 
portrayal of the changes of mood in a man who 
is to fight a duel and is afraid that he may be 
afraid! This is a masterpiece of psychology 
in which the rapid shifts of mood take the 
place of outward action. But there is a strik- 
ing dramatic climax. It is not the heavy- 
footed Henry James psychology. Character 
in action is the ideal of narrative. In the 
best fiction, short or long, it is the characters 
that make things happen. They do not wait 
for things to happen to them. Let me quote 
again that comment of a good critic, Professor 
Stuart P. Sherman, on O. Henry's surprise 
climaxes: "His surprises are not generally 
dependent upon arbitrary arrangements of ex- 
ternal circumstances, but upon plausible shifts 
and twists in the f eelings and ideas of the human 
agents." All young writers please copy! 

[146] 



Character vs. Plot 

An interesting psychological comparison may 
be made between Maupassant's A Coward and 
Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, Defoe was, as Leslie 
Stephen has said, primarily and essentially a 
journalist. "It never seemed to occur to him 
to analyze character or work up sentiment." 
He portrayed merely what he saw, not what he 
felt about what he saw. He does not even 
make Friday's death pathetic. And Crusoe 
displays, in the face of his isolation and hard- 
ships, no mental torments whatever — only a 
"preternatural stolidity." There is certainly 
a fault in character-drawing here — though 
Crusoe, we must remember, was a typical Eng- 
lishman of the early eighteenth century, who 
distrusted "enthusiasm" of any sort and was as 
hard-headed and devoted to reason as any mortal 
can be. If you don't believe this, read Swift's 
account of his ideal race, the Houyhnhnms, 
in the fourth part of Gulliver's Travels. 

On the whole, magazine stories reveal much 
more deftness in plot than in character. The 
"persons of the story" are often very conven- 
tional. A good character tale always stands 
out by contrast with them. Note, for example, 
The Friends, by Stacy Aumonier. 1 Says Harry 

1 Century, October, 1915. 

[147] 



The Contemporary Short Story 

Leon Wilson: "I take a dozen monthly maga- 
zines. ... I count it a lucky month when I 
find four readable short stories in the twelve — 
say four stories out of seventy -two! Plots 
evenly good, but oh! the dreadful aridity of 
their disclosures — their appalling dead con- 
ventionalness of character." If Aristotle said, 
adds Mr. Wilson, that the plot is the first prin- 
ciple and that character holds a second place, 
why, "that will be about all for Aristotle." 
And some of us are likely to indorse both the 
sentiment and the slang. 

Note, for example, the cheap, melodramatic 
effect in the following passage. The attempt 
at characterization is wholly unconvincing. And 
in this case the plot also is stale. 

At the doctor's side was seated a woman about thirty 
years of age. She was still very beautiful. Her wide 
blue eyes were turned with an intelligent interest to her 
companion, who was speaking. 

"Yes, Mrs. Waverly," he said, "many of the patients 
are quite sane on most subjects. In fact, one of my best 
patients is at this very moment playing bridge in there 
with your husband, my wife and Miss Siebert." His 
companion leaned forward in her chair, surprise evinced 
in her features. "There, there," continued the doctor, 
smiling, "do not be alarmed. He is a perfect gentleman, 
one of the finest I have ever met. He has only one be- 

[148] 



Character vs. Plot 

setting sin which society will not forgive — insanity. 
One of my guests did not turn up, so I invited my patient." 

A few moments later the physician was called away, 
and Mrs. Waverly remained alone. The fire was very 
low now. Its cheeriness seemed to have vanished. The 
voices from the other room sounded indistinct and far 
away. Suddenly the plush curtains over the doorway 
parted and a tall, not unhandsome man quietly entered. 
He advanced toward Mrs. Waverly and, bowing politely, 
seated himself in the vacant chair. 

"Pardon me" — his voice was very pleasant — "the 
doctor sent me in to talk to you for a moment or so. 
He was called to the telephone. He will not be long." 
. As he turned and looked at her face, suggestively sil- 
houetted by the firelight, he started and paled. Then he 
laughed quietly and smiled like a weary child. "Strange! 
At first I thought you were some one else — some one I 
knew a long, long time ago. But that, of course, is very 
foolish of me. She died years and years ago." 

He had turned to the fire and could not see the look of 
terror in the blue eyes of the woman beside him. His 
eyes seemed to search the center of the flames for some 
secret of the past. "Yes. At first I thought you were 
some one else, some one I used to know, out there in the 
world; a girl named Vera. We were in love, Vera and 
I — but she died. All that was long ago." Suddenly 
he started. "You will excuse me, Mrs. Waverly? I 
suddenly remember that I counted up the score in the last 
rubber incorrectly. Good evening." He bowed politely. 

This has all the earmarks of the old-style 
melodrama, and to even a moderately sophisti- 

[149] 



The Contemporary Short Story 

cated reader it is full of unconscious humor. 
Of course the heroine drops a handkerchief em- 
broidered with a V — for Vera — and the doctor 
picks it up after she has left! 

An even worse example of amateurishness 
was recently printed (with an editorial note) 
as a jest by the Smart Set. 1 The author con- 
fided that he had been writing stories for eight 
years; so the editor thought he ought to have 
a chance ! The reader may judge how many 
more years would be necessary to make this 
author successful. I quote from the beginning 
and the end: 

Ed Miller and his wife were sitting together in their 
private lounging-room on this special evening, when Ed 
spoke to his wife suddenly, and said: 

"Cora, I think we should have some children, now that 
we have been married seven years — and seven years of 
honeymoon represents a barren moon." 

"Possibly so," agreed Cora with carelessness. "But 
I'm not inclined to favor children, Eddy, in just that 
manner. Life is too short, and time too precious to be 
wasting my poor blood in reproduction." 

Now, Ed was breaking down with overwork, and was 
not prepared to shake off his wife's flippancy. 

"Cora," said he, "this will never do! Are you going 
to die a barren woman, never to be remembered by 
posterity, and forgotten in your tomb?" 
1 February, 1915. 
[150] 



Character vs. Plot 

"Ah, now, Eddy!" pouted Cora. "You are too solemn 
this evening, and I cannot agree to listen with patience. 
It would seem that I have sufficient grievance with life 
to resent anything that pertains to having children. 
The picture of that little grave hanging on the wall is 
quite enough to arouse my bitterness." 

Eddy disappears on that "cold and stormy 
night" and is not heard from for a long time, 
although Cora offers a reward of fifty thousand 
dollars for information! Finally a letter arrives. 
It contains only four words: "Come see Black 
Mantle." She goes, is met by two Indians 
and taken a hundred miles by river to meet 
the chief. In a little green valley she finds him 
and his wife, Queen Mantle, "a born lady of 
the wilderness," who has seven children. Also 
Eddy turns up: 

"Poor Cora!" came a heavy voice. "So you have 
come at last. Good little girl!" 

"Oh, Eddy! My own, my own! I'm afraid to open 
my eyes lest I see your poor ghost a- vanishing." 

"Open your eyes, Cora. It is I — what there is left 
of me." 

So Cora opened her eyes slowly, fearing lest she should 
awake in Hades, with this last, least hope coming to 
haunt her nights of sorrow. But she was in her Eddy's 
arms, drawn up close to his living heart, and they gazed 
upon one another speechless, until the stars came out to 
twinkle in the heavens. And they were left alone, for 

[151] 



The Contemporary Short Story 

Black Mantle and his wife had slipped away, and were 
gone all night. 

"Well," said Ed, "my life has been made complete 
once more, except that I do not know how I got here. I 
recall a night when it was raining, and I was talking to 
you, when a mist rose up around me. In that mist I 
could see the Colorado River, and it seemed that I was 
already there — though I must have traveled a great 
distance to get there, for Black Mantle found me a month 
ago, and he said that I was asking for him, but I did not 
know him in person." 

This is a little more absurd than the average 
amateur manuscript, but the present writer has 
seen many that were close rivals of it. It is 
necessary to read only a few such exaggerated 
examples of faulty character portrayal and 
improbable plot to realize that story writing 
is a difficult art — - so difficult that the tyro is 
likely to supply, here and there at least, passages 
of unconscious humor to sub -editors whose duty 
it is to run through the day's volunteer manu- 
scripts. It is only by a rare ability to realize 
one's characters so intensely that they seem to 
be actually present as one writes that natural, 
convincing dialogue and brief, pregnant com- 
ments upon these characters can be produced. 
Too many personages, in tales with skilful plots, 
are but half-animate or wholly inanimate pup- 

[152] 



Character vs. Plot 

pets moved about in a toy theater. You catch 
the author studying his moves. Even in crafts- 
manlike stories one who is himself a writer of 
fiction can often see the machinery which is 
hidden from the casual reader. To conceal 
one's art perfectly, either in dialogue or in 
structure, is an achievement reserved for a few 
acknowledged masters. But how briefly, some- 
times, is a great effect secured! Lear expresses 
his intolerable grief over the death of Cordelia 
by saying simply — as he tugs at his throat — 
"Pray you, undo this button. Thank you, 
sir." 

Poe's greatest defect was his lack of interest 
in individuals. Take as an extreme example his 
remarkably vivid narrative of the Spanish 
Inquisition, The Pit and the- Pendulum, The 
man lying bound under the descending crescent 
of steel is not an individual. As Professor Bliss 
Perry puts it, he is anyone in that situation, 
"Richard Roe or John Doe." Here the situa- 
tion itself is exciting enough and memorable 
enough to carry the story; but it is not usually 
ranked as one of Poe's greatest efforts. By 
common consent it is a kind of art which is lower 
than the highest. What would Savonarola have 
done in such a situation? That is the kind 

[153] 



The Contemporary Short Story 

of question which a writer profoundly interested 
in character would have asked himself. It is 
said that Browning was intimately acquainted 
with the details of all celebrated murder cases 
for half a century — not for delight in the gory 
deeds of the criminals but for the delight and 
wonder of searching for their motives. 

In sharp contrast to Poe's tale, the reaction 
of one particular individual on another is admira- 
bly shown in one of Katharine Fullerton Ger- 
ould's stories, Vain Oblations, in the volume 
bearing that title. 1 This tale, which illustrates 
Mrs. Gerould's art at its best rather than at 
its over-subtle and psychological worst — for 
she is evidently a disciple of Henry James — 
contains a powerful climax situation that could 
have been brought about, we feel, only by the 
cooperation of the two peculiar persons con- 
cerned. The theme is the New England con- 
science. A missionary's daughter has been 
captured in Africa by a hostile tribe and has 
become one of the wives of a chief. Long after- 
ward her New England lover finds her, but she 
is so changed in appearance that she is able 
to deceive him into thinking that she is, after 
all, another person. To the end, he is not quite 

1 Charles Scribner's Sons. 
[154] 



Character vs. Plot 

sure. Unquestionably here is a strange plot 
in itself, but it is the character analysis which 
makes the story. If Mrs. Gerould had written 
many tales thus combining the virtues of plot 
and character, she would have reached a much 
wider audience than she has so far succeeded 
in reaching. I quote the climax scene: 

Outside the hut, her back to the setting sun, stood the 
woman. Saxe had of course known that Mary would be 
dressed like a native; but this figure staggered him. She 
was half naked, after the fashion of the tribe, a long 
petticoat being her only garment. Undoubtedly her skin 
had been originally fair, Saxe said; but it was tanned to 
a deep brown — virtually bronzed. For that matter, 
there was hardly an inch of her that was not tattooed or 
painted. Some great design, crudely smeared in with 
thick strokes of ochre, covered her throat, shoulders, and 
breast. Over it were hung rows and rows of shells, the 
longest rows reaching to the top of the petticoat. Her 
face was oddly marred — uncivilized, you might say — 
by a large nose-ring, and a metal disk that was set in 
the lower lip, distending it. . . . To his consternation, 
the woman stood absolutely silent, her eyes bent on the 
ground, her face in shadow. Even Saxe, who had no 
psychology, seems to have seen that Mary Bradford 
would, in that plight — if it was she — wait for him to 
speak first. ... 

Perhaps he was simply afraid it was she because it 
would be so terrible if it were, and was resolved not to 
shirk. Saxe, too, was a New Englander. At all events, 

[155] 



The Contemporary Short Story 

he shouted his creed a little louder still. "You are treat- 
ing me very badly, Mary. I am going to buy you from 
the chief; and then you will listen to me.'*. . . 

The woman grovelled at the chief's feet; she pointed 
to Saxe and wrung her hands. She was not Saxe's slave, 
and evidently did not wish to be. . . . 

Let it be said now that Saxe had one clear inspiration. 
Before leaving the hut, he had turned and spoken to the 
woman who was fawning on the wretched negro. "Mary," 
he said, "if you ask me to, I will shoot you straight through 
the heart." The woman had snarled unintelligibly at the 
sound of his voice, and had redoubled her caresses. Can 
you blame Saxe for having doubted? Remember that 
she had not for one moment given any sign of being Mary 
Bradford; remember that he had no proof that it was 
Mary Bradford. 

Early the next morning she was found dead 
in her own hovel, "with a clean stab to her 
heart." The author adds: "Suicide is virtually 
unknown among savages." Why did she do it? 
Evidently because she felt that her bodily 
degradation had unfitted her to be taken back 
to civilization as Saxe's wife. She had sacri- 
ficed herself — quixotically, if you like — for 
his sake. You feel, after following the whole 
story carefully, that to a person of her tempera- 
ment her course was inevitable. As a piece of 
character analysis the tale is worthy of high 

praise. 

[156] 



Character vs. Plot 

Stevenson's beautiful tale, The Sire de Male- 
troifs Door, is well worth comparing with his 
Will o' the Mill or A Lodging for the Night, with 
respect to character. The young lovers in the 
first-named story are largely typical rather 
than individual. What they do is what youth 
would always do in a similar situation. There 
is no attempt at careful individualization. But 
the Sire de Maletroit himself is, in contrast, 
remarkably individualized: 

On a high chair beside the chimney, and directly facing 
Denis as he entered, sat a little old gentleman in a fur 
tippet. He sat with his legs crossed and his hands folded, 
and a cup of spiced wine stood by his elbow on a bracket 
on the wall. His countenance had a strongly masculine 
cast; not properly human, but such as we see in the bull, 
the goat, or the domestic boar; something equivocal and 
wheedling, something greedy, brutal, and dangerous. 
The upper lip was inordinately full, as though swollen by 
a blow or a toothache; and the smile, the peaked eye- 
brows, and the small, strong eyes were quaintly and al- 
most comically evil in expression. Beautiful white hair 
hung straight all round his head, like a saint's, and fell 
in a single curl upon the tippet. His beard and mustache 
were the pink of venerable sweetness. Age, probably in 
consequence of inordinate precautions, had left no mark 
upon his hands; and the Maletroit hand was famous. 
It would be difficult to imagine anything at once so fleshy 
and so delicate in design; the taper, sensual fingers were 

[157] 



The Contemporary Short Story 

like those of one of Leonardo's women; the fork of the 
thumb made a dimpled protuberance when closed; the 
nails were perfectly shaped, and of a dead, surprising 
whiteness. It rendered his aspect tenfold more redoubt- 
able, that a man with hands like these should keep them 
devoutly folded like a virgin martyr — that a man with 
so intent and startling an expression of face should sit 
patiently on his seat and contemplate people with an un- 
winking stare, like a god, or a god's statue. His quies- 
cence seemed ironical and treacherous, it fitted so poorly 
with his looks. 

Such was Alain, Sire de Maletroit. 

You will search far, in present-day maga- 
zine fiction, to find a passage like that! What 
Stevenson said of Hazlitt, one of the best styl- 
ists of the nineteenth century, may be applied 
to himself: we are mighty fine fellows, but we 
can't write like Robert Louis Stevenson. 

The Sire de Maletroit illustrates admirably 
what is true of most of the effective character 
studies in short stories — that the persons are 
unusual and striking, perhaps even eccentric. 
This kind of man or woman can be handled in 
the brief space of the short tale much more easily 
and vividly than can an average person. Ste- 
venson's Olalla, Will o' the Mill, Villon, and Dr. 
Jekyll are all out of the ordinary. And so are 
most of Kipling's characters, including that 

[158] 



Character vs. Plot 

capable young lady, William the Conqueror. 
Only one such figure is necessary, however, 
in a short story. The others — of whom there 
should be few — may be nearer to the normal. 
Character contrast, between the two principal 
figures, is often used very skilfully, as in the 
case of Dravot and Carnehan 1 or Sherlock 
Holmes and Dr. Watson. In both these cases 
one is weaker and is used merely as a foil to the 
other. What Hamlet says, jestingly, of himself 
is profoundly true if applied to Watson versus 
Holmes : 

"I'll be your foil, Laertes; in mine ignorance 
Your skill shall, like a star i' the darkest night, 
Stick fiery off indeed." 

It must be borne in mind also that the short 
story does not give sufficient scope for the de- 
velopment of character. Hawthorne's Scarlet 
Letter lends him opportunity denied to his brief 
tales. In them, character is largely static. 
But it may be tested at some moment of crisis. 
And it is in such moments that the real man 
comes out. Half of us do not even know our- 
selves until we have been tested by some crisis 
that calls for immediate action. Browning was 

1 In The Man Who Would Be King. 
[159] 



The Contemporary Short Story 

extraordinarily fond of these "eminent mo- 
ments" of life. Of the meeting of the Grand 
Duke Ferdinand and the unnamed lady, in The 
Statue and the Bust, he finely says: "The past 
was a sleep and her life began." The short- 
story writer who can seize upon such moments 
as these can etch a memorable portrait. But 
he must not hope to rival the novelist or the 
dramatist — except the dramatist in the one- 
act play. His is a literary form with strict 
limitations. 

It has not seemed wise to insert in this vol- 
ume an extended discussion of realism versus 
romanticism in fiction. Those who are inter- 
/ested in this eternal controversy will find two 
1 excellent chapters on it in Professor Bliss Perry's 
]A Study of Prose Fiction. It is perhaps sufficient 
to remark here that Shakespeare's plays, like 
most great literature, show a judicious com- 
bination of realistic and romantic elements. 
As Maurice Hewlett says: "The peeling and 
gutting of fact should be done in the kitchen." 
Homely or displeasing details of everyday fife 
should not be exhibited merely for their own sake. 
The effect of Zola, one of the gods of the realists, 
is well described by Cecil Chesterton: "His 
work reminded me only of a stretch of soft mud 

[160] 



Character vs. Plot 

diversified by a few dead dogs and decaying 
vegetables — as depressing as it was noxious." 
A good way to arrive at a verdict as to what 
qualities are required to produce the greatest 
short stories is to take a vote among prominent 
writers of such stories. This the New York 
Times has done, in a symposium printed in its 
issue of January 25-, 1914. 1 Some of the authors 
who voted were Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, W. 
W. Jacobs, Booth Tarkington, Mary E. Wilkins- 
Freeman, Thomas Nelson Page, Mary Rob- 
erts Rinehart, James Lane Allen, Leonard 
Merrick, Owen Wister, Robert W. Chambers, 
Owen Johnson, Jack London, Edna Ferber, 
Irvin S. Cobb, Richard Harding Davis, Mon- 
tague Glass, and Gouverneur Morris. They 
were asked to name "pointblank" the best 
short story in English. Some refused to select 
any one, but mentioned several. As a result, 
Stevenson's A Lodging for the Night and Bret 
Harte's The Outcasts of Poker Flat led all the 
rest. In a second group fell three Kipling 
tales, The Man Who Would Be King, The Brush- 
wood Boy, and Without Benefit of Clergy; also 
Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness and O. 
Henry's A Municipal Report. In a third group 

1 What is The Best Short Story in English? 

[161] 



The Contemporary Short Story 

came Dickens' A Christmas Carol, Poe's The 
Gold-Bug and The Fall of the House of Usher, 
Bret Harte's The Luck of Roaring Camp, and 
Irvin Cobb's The Belled Buzzard. 

Conan Doyle declared that, on the whole, 
Stevenson's Pavilion on the Links was his ideal 
of a short story. W. W. Jacobs thought that 
"one of the best" was Will o' the Mill. Thomas 
Nelson Page voted for Heart of Darkness. 
James Lane Allen named A Christmas Carol, 
though he added that it is "perhaps as faulty 
a story as was ever written" — which is prob- 
ably due to the fact that Dickens was not pri- 
marily a short-story writer and had not studied 
,the special technique of the short story. 

The verdicts of authors are not, on the whole, 
so valuable as those of persons more detached 
- of trained critics. But most of the stories 
named satisfy the verdict of humanity. Now, 
what qualities do these best stories exhibit? 
I think it will be found safe to generalize to 
this extent: Those short stories are greatest 
which, in addition to good structure and good 
character portrayal, show fine humanity, with 
a touch of elevation, of nobility. 1 They must 

1 It is assumed that they show a good English style. This topic is 
treated in the next chapter. 

[162] 



Character vs. Plot 

lift us out of the commonplace and inspire us. 
And they do it largely by the touch of elevation 
in even such hardened characters as that of 
Oakhurst, the professional gambler. 1 Literary 
conscience and the touch of elevation mark all 
great literature of a serious turn — all literature 
which the generations finally agree to call classic. 
The ambition of the two adventurers, Dravot 
and Carnehan, in The Man Who Would Be 
King, certainly shows this elevation; and A 
Municipal Report reveals that kindness of heart 
which prevents us from losing faith in human 
nature. Ingenious as are the plots of some of 
these best stories, it is treatment of character 
which overtops all else. What was that illu- 
minating remark that Lamb made when some 
one asked him whether he didn't hate a certain 
man? "Hate him?" replied Lamb in surprise. 
"How could I hate him? Didn't I know him?" 
In that answer is contained a whole textbook 
of character study. Only in melodrama is there 
such an anomaly as an out-and-out villain or 
an out-and-out hero. The writers of the greatest 
short stories know human nature. They are 
enthralled and uplifted by the "mystery and 
surprise of character." 

1 In The Outcasts of Poker Flat. 
[163] 



The Contemporary Short Story 

In A Lodging for the Night there is a fine 
balance between plot and character. The mur- 
der supplies sufficient excitement; and there is 
also a vivid tableau when Villon confronts the 
honest old gentleman in his doorway and asks 
him for a lodging. Here, however, it is clear 
that Stevenson was interested chiefly in the 
contrast in appearance and character between 
the two — the rogue and the honest man. The 
description of the latter, as he stands in the 
strong light, framed in a doorway picture, is 
not likely to be forgotten even by the casual 
reader. The vagabond poet, with all his clever- 
ness, makes but a poor figure beside simple 
and soldierly uprightness. Yet of didacticism 
there is hardly a trace in the tale. 

Among highly popular short stories this is 
one of the few that go far back in time. The 
scene is laid in the Paris of 1456. Maurice 
Hewlett's less well known Quattrocentisteria, laid 
in Florence at about the same time, may well 
be compared with it. There, also, is to be dis- 
cerned the finest character work possible with- 
in the narrow limits of the short story, and 
in addition a remarkable purity and nobility in 
handling a sex theme: painter and model. In 
both stories creative imagination is, of course, far 

[164] 



Character vs. Plot 

above the merely good. In connection with 
Stevenson's it is worth while to read his essay, 
Frangois Villon, Student, Poet, and Housebreaker, 
in order to see how differently some of the same 
material is treated in non-fiction form. 

The Outcasts of Poker Flat, though often listed 
as a local-color story, gains its high rank chiefly 
from its sympathy and penetration in treat- 
ment of character. It is in many respects 
intensely American; and this doubtless accounts 
for the large number of votes cast for it by 
American authors. But its appeal is universal. 
As an illustration of the "soul of goodness in 
things evil" it would be difficult to surpass it. 
Peter B. Kyne's The Three Godfathers, which is 
also laid in the Far West and founded on a similar 
theme, affords a suggestive comparison among 
recent short tales. It has the same touch of 
nobility. Three desperadoes, after committing 
a crime, meet a woman at the point of death 
and agree to take her baby out of the desert to 
civilization. Two of them perish of weariness 
and thirst, but the youngest finally staggers 
to his goal. For sentiment without sentimen- 
tality there are few magazine stories that can 
match it. John Oakhurst, however, in Bret 
Harte's tale, is probably better drawn than any 

[165] 



The Contemporary Short Story 

of the three characters in Mr. Kyne's. There 
is an almost epic largeness about his figure 
which lifts the story out of the realm of the 
popular periodical into the domain of permanent 
literature. It would be rash, however, to pre- 
dict that The Three Godfathers will not eventu- 
ally find entrance into the same domain. Mr. 
Kyne at his best has more than mere talent — 
felicity rather than facility. 

In The Brushwood Boy it must be the author's 
power of imagination which is chiefly admired. 
Here also, nevertheless, the character portrayal 
should not be overlooked. George Cottar makes 
the story convincing because he is such a normal, 
healthy, and efficient human being. He is not 
a creature of nerves; and his psychical experi- 
ence is therefore better suited to Kipling's 
purpose than is that of the blind woman in 
They. When he declares his love for the girl 
who has shared his remarkable dream voyages 
that start from the brushwood pile on the beach, 
he is surprised to find himself saying things to 
her which he had previously imagined to exist 
only in story-books. It is his matter-of-fact- 
ness which individualizes the tale quite as much 
as the strange plot. Here again, therefore, is 
an admirable example of the balance between 

[166] 



Character vs. Plot 

plot and character which should mark any 
great story. Analyzing character while the nar- 
rative stands still is not good art in the short 
story — and not the highest art in the novel. 
Considered as a story, George Eliot's Adam 
Bede is superior to her later novel, Middle- 
march. The same is true of Henry James' 
early works as compared with his later ones. 
Character is of genuine story value only when it 
is shown in action. In the short story, as has 
already been pointed out, it should generally be 
shown at some " eminent moment" of life, some 
crisis which will put it to a severe test. 

Obviously, A Christmas Carol would have re- 
ceived no votes at all on the score of technique. 
Charles Dickens did not know how to write a 
short story; but here he blundered into great- 
ness, if one may speak cavalierly, by sheer 
merit of character portrayal and warm human 
sympathy. He is didactic and sentimental — 
as didactic as Hawthorne in his second-best 
work and as sentimental (almost) as a modern 
"best-seller" — but he probes the human heart 
with a sure finger. Dickens was so great a 
novelist that he could not help showing some of 
his greatness even in a literary form which was 
uncongenial to him. The moment, however, 

[167] 



The Contemporary Short Story <, 

that one compares him as a short-story writer 
with Kipling or Stevenson, one can see what is 
missing. 

The fact that three Kipling tales were placed 
in the second group of most popular stories is 
significant partly in that Kipling is intensely 
modern. Better than any other short-story 
artist, he caught, in his great period, from 1888 
to about 1900, the spirit of the age. His effect 
upon his public has been so well put by Pro- 
fessor Stuart P. Sherman l that I reproduce the 
passage here: 

In concocting his tales he aimed to hit robust masculine 
tastes, to speak with a tang to men in smoking-rooms, 
and trains and barracks. But he made them so bril- 
liant with Oriental color, so intense and arresting in 
their energy, wonder, terror, and splendor that he fas- 
cinated not merely the miscellaneous reading multitudes 
but also the hardened critics and the fastidious literary 
men like R. L. Stevenson and Mr. Henry James, who 
dropped their pens, and pricked up their ears, and cried 
out to one another that in the smoking-room there was 
a great artist. 

Kipling is both a people's author and an 
authors' author. This is true also of O. Henry, 
but not to anything like the same extent. And 
this is due mainly to the fact that his characters 

1 A Book of Short Stories, p. 337. Henry Holt & Co. 
[168] 



Character vs. Plot 

are by no means so well individualized. One 
does not think offhand of even the best of them 
as indubitable flesh-and-blood people — which 
is how one thinks of Mulvaney and William the 
Conqueror and Dravot and Cottar. One pic- 
tures O. Henry as more thoroughly at home in 
the smoking-room than Kipling; the latter has 
evidently put in a good many quiet hours in a 
spacious library of the old masters. He comes 
to his modernity down an avenue of inheritances 
and traditions. 

The relegation of Poe to the third group, by 
the author vote, is intelligible because of his 
lack of interest in character and his morbidity; 
but one rubs one's eyes upon discovering no 
Hawthorne tale in any group. Is Hawthorne 
old-fashioned? Has the New England con- 
science been totally superseded? Is Hawthorne 
spiritually provincial? I find no very satis- 
factory answers to these questions; but I dis- 
cover something suggestive in this comment 
by one of his modern critics: "He found it 
difficult to form contacts with his fellow men 
because he was almost wholly engrossed in 
what they prefer not to communicate" — in 
other words, in secrets of the conscience. Pro- 
fessor C. T. Winchester, in his Principles of 

[169] 



The Contemporary Short Story 

Literary Criticism, 1 states that, for literary- 
purposes, "the emotions highest of all are those 
related to the deciding forces of life, the affec- 
\ tions and the conscience." But Hawthorne, 
who was a little chilly, rarely showed strength 
in the realm of the affections. Can you recall 
offhand any Hawthorne character for whom 
you have a warm, intimate liking? Perhaps 
for Ernest, in The Great Stone Face; but even 
this story failed to receive a vote. Some of us, 
I suspect, will not be able to reconcile ourselves 
to the omission, from any list of great short 
stories, of such masterpieces as The Birthmark, 
The Artist of the Beautiful, Ethan Brand, and 
The Ambitious Guest. And the influence of 
Hawthorne upon the short story of to-day, if 
not so great as that of Poe and Maupassant, 
is nevertheless clearly to be discerned. His 
chief defect, I suspect, in the eyes of the voting 
authors, was that he was obsessed by allegory 
and was always a little too much the preacher. 
One thinks of him, with his romantic tone and 
rhythmical periods, as the Jeremy Taylor of the 
short story. 

It is the touch of elevation which is most 
lacking in current magazine fiction — partic- 

1 Page 108. 
[170] 



Character vs. Plot 

ularly in the magazines of large circulation. 
Flippant, colloquial, slangy tales predominate, 
designed merely to fill in the half-hour before 
dinner, or the hour or two on the train, or the 
evening after hard work at the office or in the 
field. Many tales of this kind there must be — 
tales that amuse without requiring much thought. 
But they are forgotten the week after they are 
read. Their very dialect is ephemeral; the slang 
and colloquialisms of to-day are thrown on the 
ash heap of to-morrow. Some of O. Henry's 
stories, for this reason, are already beginning to 
sound flat and stale, after an interval of less 
than ten years — but not his best ones. 

The writer of short stories who wishes to gain 
the top must take his craft seriously. He must 
give more than the average editor demands — 
that more which consists in character portrayal 
that will stand scrutiny, not merely the hasty 
reading of the average subscriber; in construc- 
tion that needs no props, no editorial changes 
or suggestions; in English style that is unpre- 
tentious but carefully wrought; and in honesty 
that refuses to treat themes and characters 
with which he has only an imperfect acquaint- 
ance. It may be true that, when business comes 
in at the door, art flies out of the window. Yet 

[171] 



The Contemporary Short Story 

good work, sound work, always finds ultimately 
its reward. If you are writing for a definite 
magazine, give the editor what he says he wants, 
also what he really wants — and then the little 
more which is art. 



EXERCISES 

1. Make an outline (if you can!) of Joseph Conrad's 
Youth (in the volume bearing that title), in order to show 
how little dependence he places on plot in this instance. 
Compare Heart of Darkness, in the same volume. Can 
you suggest any reasons, aside from plot, why Conrad is 
not so popular among average magazine readers as was 
O. Henry? And how do you account for the fact that so 
many story writers admire him greatly? 

2. Of six stories in a single issue of Harper's how many 
are mystery or problem stories? Apply the same test to 
six in two successive issues of the Saturday Evening Post. 
Do you prefer the "problem" tales in these magazines? 
Why, or why not? 

3. Compare the plot with the character drawing in 
Galsworthy's admirable little story, Quality (in Short 
Stories for High Schools). Is there any mystery or sur- 
prise in this story? What does the title suggest, as to 
the author's purpose? 

4. Find in a current magazine a story which resembles 
Poe's The Pit and the' Pendulum — one where the situ- 
ation is everything and the character or characters noth- 

[172] 



Character vs. Plot 

ing, so far as individualization is concerned. Then 
compare it with some other story in the same issue. 

5. Give an impression of the character of Sherlock 
Holmes from any one of the short stories in which he 
appears. 

6. Give three examples of a striking test of character 
(in a short story) at an "eminent moment" of life — a 
moment of supreme crisis. What writers handle such a 
moment best? Compare Kipling, for example, with 
Mary Wilkins-Freeman or with 0. Henry. 

7. In what magazines do you find most stories with a 
touch of elevation, of nobility? And in what ones do you 
find most that are flippant, or cynical, or merely exam- 
ples of light entertainment? What evidence do you find, 
if any, that our best magazines are giving us some real 
literature in their short stories? 

8. Give an example from one of Booth Tarkington's 
Penrod tales of what he calls "the mystery and surprise 
of character." Try An Overwhelming Saturday, which is 
one of his best. (You will find this, under different chap- 
ter titles, in Penrod, chapters xv, xvi, xvii; or, in its 
original form, in the Cosmopolitan, Nov., 1913.) 

9. Peter B. Kyne's admirable story, The Three God- 
fathers, has been "dramatized" by a motion picture com- 
pany. Does this indicate that the pictorial element in 
it, the action element, is stronger than the characters? 
Read it, and write a comment upon the characterization. 
Compare it, favorably or unfavorably, with some other 
story of pathos. 

[173] 



The Contemporary Short Story 

10. What writers seem to prefer very unusual or ec- 
centric characters? Does this method, in your opinion, 
improve or injure their short stories? Why? Compare 
Kipling's The Man Who Would Be King with The Brush- 
wood Boy, with respect to choice and portrayal of char- 
acters. And compare his average characters with those 
in one of Jane Austen's novels — Pride and Prejudice, 
for example. 

11. Prophecy is a dangerous business; but name at 
least one highly popular magazine writer whose work 
seems superficial and aimed merely at temporary vogue 
— one not likely to be read much after his death. Is 
his lack of permanent quality chiefly a lack of depth 
and truth of character portrayal? Of a noble attitude 
toward life? Of a truly literary style? Or is it a result 
of apparent haste in composition? Of insincerity? Of 
over-addiction to newspaper methods and atmosphere? 

12. In a given set of circumstances — for example, in 
Kipling's The Brushwood Boy — substitute a different 
type of character for the one used by the author as his 
hero or heroine. Would this new character act as did 
the original one? Interchange some of Shakespeare's 
characters — Ophelia with Lady Macbeth or Cleopatra, 
for example — and observe the profound change which 
would be necessary in plot. 

13. In the newspaper reports of any recent murder 
case, study the apparent motives of the criminal. Which 
seem certain and which doubtful? And why? 

14. In which of the following stories is there a char- 
acter, or more than one, that you instantly remember? 

[174] 



Character vs. Plot 

And why do you remember him or her so readily? (This 
of course presupposes that you have already perused the 
tales mentioned.) Poe's The Fall of the House of Usher, 
Maupassant's The Necklace, Kipling's The Man Who 
Was, O. Henry's Phoebe, Mary Wilkins-Freeman's The 
Revolt of "Mother," Poe's The Gold-Bug, Hawthorne's 
The Great Stone Face, Conan Doyle's The Adventure of 
the Speckled Band. 

15. Compare Zelig, by Benjamin Rosenblatt, in 
O'Brien's The Best Short Stories of 1915, with Mary 
Synon's The Bounty-Jumper in the same volume. Mr. 
O'Brien declares that Zelig is the best story of the year; 
but the editor of The Bookman (May, 1916) says that it 
is not the second best, "nor the twentieth best." What 
is your opinion? 



[175] 



CHAPTER V 

STYLE AND THE CLASSICS 

Whoever talks of excellence as common and abun- 
dant, is on the way to lose all right standard of excel- 
lence. And when the right standard of excellence is 
lost, it is not likely that much which is excellent will 
be produced. — Matthew Arnold, Essays in Criti- 
cism, Second Series. 

Although fairly good prose is much more common 
than fairly good verse, yet I hold that truly fine prose 
is more rare than truly fine poetry. I trust that it 
will be counted neither a whim nor a paradox if I give 
it as a reason that mastery in prose is an art more 
difficult than mastery in verse. The very freedom of 
prose, its want of conventions, of settled prosody, of 
musical inspiration, give wider scope for failure and 
afford no beaten paths. — Frederic Harrison, On 
English Prose. 

I do not know — and I do not believe that any one 
knows, however much he may juggle with terms — 
why certain words arranged in certain order stir one 
like the face of the sea, or like the face of a girl, while 
other arrangements leave one absolutely indifferent 
or excite boredom or dislike. — George Saintsbury, 
A History of Criticism. 

No style is good that is not fit to be spoken or read 
aloud with effect. — William Hazlitt, The Plain 
Speaker. 

[176] 



Style and the Classics 

Each phrase in literature is built of sounds, as each 
phrase in music consists of notes. One sound suggests, 
echoes, demands, and harmonizes with another; and 
the art of rightly using these concordances is the final 
art in literature. — Robert Louis Stevenson, On 
Some Technical Elements of Style in Literature. 

Among the editors who have made known their 
wants in the monthly Bulletin of the Authors' 
League of America, only one states that contri- 
butions must be written "with due regard to 
English style." The omission, in many of the 
other cases, is significant. A well-known fic- 
tion editor remarked, in a lecture to a college 
class in the short story, that though editors 
do not discourage finish of style they do not 
call for it — with the implication that it adds 
nothing to the money value of a story. Another 
editor, equally well known, is reputed to have 
said that there is no such thing as a classic — 
that his clever writers are just as good as Steven- 
son and Thackeray and Swift and Addison. 
And an anonymous contributor to the Saturday 
Evening Post delivers himself of this naive 
verdict: 

The principal reason a gem of literature is called classic 
is because it is old. The authors who are now revered 
as producers of classics — the boys we all revere and 
never read — were pretty lucky in their day and gen- 

[177] 



The Contemporary Short Story 

eration; for, with most of them, the sole reason for the 
embalming of their productions hi the amber of literary 
regard is found in the anterior period in which they were 
produced, and not in the art of their productions. There 
was not so much competition, and they got by rather 
easily. 

Making due allowance for the fact that this 
verdict occurs in a humorous article, one may 
still surmise that it represents pretty accu- 
rately the sober opinion of its author (whose 
name is known to the present writer). Certain 
it is that this somewhat egotistical contributor 
did not get his own style from the classics; 
else he would have learned not to waste words. 

As educators have mournfully and frequently 
asserted, the ultra-popular periodical lowers 
the tone of written and spoken English by 
encouraging, in fact insisting upon, a profusion 
of colloquialisms and slang. In humorous arti- 
cles and stories this is somewhat defensible; 
but it probably accounts for the fact that, in a 
recent test, half of the students in a college 
class in rhetoric were unable to recognize as 
slang the term "joy ride." As mentioned in 
the last chapter, O. Henry will undoubtedly 
suffer from his too liberal use of ephemeral 
slang. Twenty-five years from now most of 

[178] 



Style and the Classics 

this slang will have been forgotten and new 
phrases will have taken the place of the old — 
to be forgotten in their turn. But the phrases 
of Swift and Addison, written in the early eigh- 
teenth century, are as good to-day as when the 
wits of the Queen Anne coffee houses first 
applauded them. Swift was "the prince of 
journalists " ; but he would not have been known 
to-day if he had not been something more. He 
was a literary artist. 

Certain editors of highly popular magazines 
have steadfastly set their faces against allowing 
America to become what Lord Palmerston 
called Germany: "A land of damned profes- 
sors." But it must be remembered that such 
editors — and some book publishers also — 
are of the business-man type rather than the 
literary type. Some of them would apparently 
like to create a sort of French Revolution in 
literature, in the course of which all the "high- 
brows" should be guillotined and all the other 
fellows exalted. If this blessed millennium ever 
arrives, we shall all humbly admit that we 
were mistaken in preferring Stevenson to Sam- 
uel G. Blythe, and we shall calmly accept the 
new literary era in which businesslike editors 
of periodicals with a circulation of a million 

[179] 






The Contemporary Short Story 

or two millions shall act as arbiters of the 
reading and literary destinies of the American 
people ! 

But — first listen to Harry Leon Wilson, 
who, as a favorite contributor to the Post, 
cannot be accused of being a "high-brow." 
In the Sun symposium, referred to in the pre- 
ceding chapter, he quotes a request for a story : 
"We would prefer that it be a romance w T ith a 
strong love interest and a charming girl heroine, 
so to say, with a dramatic ending that will sur- 
prise the reader." 

And he adds this comment: 

If we are still at the diaperous stage it is because pub- 
lishers have kept us there. Roughly speaking, they are 
all about equally guilty. The proof of it is that scarce 
one of them will see anything cheap or funny or imper- 
tinent in the above prescription — or, alas ! more dreadful 
still, anything significant. Publishers get to be like 
that. God knows I do truly rate my own writings as 
but of moderate worth, but I have never known a pub- 
lisher who was as meek as he should have been, even in 
my poor presence. I know hardly one of them that 
wouldn't feel competent to tell me the sort of thing I 
ought to write. And they are doing it and we are doing 
it — too many of us. 

Mr. Wilson deserves a medal for his frankness. 
Good writers should not allow themselves to 

[180] 



Style and the Classics 

be bullied by editors and publishers. The 
fact is that we are in danger of developing 
in America a race of literary invertebrates. 
They write mediocre sex stories when they 
might be writing good outdoor stories of adven- 
ture or serious studies of genuine contemporary 
problems. And American readers of popular 
magazines are rapidly losing their respect for 
that which most surely distinguishes real litera- 
ture — the genius for expression, for style. 

This is the nub of the whole matter. We 
acclaim as geniuses writers who have never 
learned how to write and who never will, men 
and women who have never felt the joy of the 
finely turned phrase and the subtle prose rhythm 
of a Stevenson or a Lamb. Aside from his 
ability as a thinker and an interpreter of life, 
the chief excuse for a writer's occupation — I 
am speaking here of belles lettres rather than of 
manuals of information — is his ability to say 
felicitously what we have all felt but could 
never hope to catch in the magic leash of words. 1 
This ability is possessed by not more than a 
minority of our American fiction writers. Says 
Kipling, in a recent poem: 

1 Cf . Hazlitt: " We only find in books what is already written within 
' the red-leaved tables of our hearts.' " 

[181] 



The Contemporary Short Story 

"Ah! what avails the classic bent, 

And what the chosen word, 

Against the uncultured incident 

That actually occurred?" * 

If, however, the incident is not only uncultured 
but fictitious, then there is little excuse for 
the absence of well-wrought phraseology. The 
crudity of American prose style in fiction is 
becoming hardly less than alarming. Of the 
four excellences of prose style mentioned by 
Matthew Arnold — re gularity , uniformity, pre- 
cision, balance — many of our novelists and 
short-story writers seem never to have heard. 
Jack London, for example, a writer of real 
talent, has never overcome the painful uneven- 
ness of texture which marks the 'prentice. He 
is an artist in spots — a good many spots in 
The Call of the Wild and John Barleycorn — but 
he is not a consistent artist. 

When Chesterton called this an age of inspired 
office boys, he was more nearly right with refer- 
ence to this country than to his own. "Fame's 
great antiseptic, style," has been applied to 
very few of the somewhat pathological speci- 
mens of recent "best-sellers." John Galsworthy 
had it in his Dark Flower; but Mr. Galsworthy 

1 Metropolitan Magazine. Copyright by Rudyard Kipling. 
[182] 



Style and the Classics 

is a Briton. The unevenness of Rupert Hughes' 
performance in What Will People Say? is a 
lamentable contrast. But it is not the purpose 
of the present writer to multiply lists of offenders 
against style — against adequate expression. 
It suffices to say that there are only two classes 
of authors : those who have a literary conscience 
and those who have none. Many of our Amer- 
ican fiction writers may be estimable private 
citizens; but some of them have not been 
reared in a genuinely literary atmosphere like 
that in which authors such as Mr. Galsworthy 
were reared. They would probably reject as 
laughable Milton's definition of a real book as 
"the precious life-blood of a master spirit, 
embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a 
life beyond life." 

If it were not for the editorial shibboleth, 
"American subjects for American readers," 
more Britons would probably crowd out Ameri- 
cans from the popular magazines than at pres- 
ent; for even the most businesslike type of 
editor has a sneaking admiration for style — 
though he might not recognize it by this name. 
What American humorist in fiction has anything 
like the unerring sense of humorous and char- 
acterizing phrase that distinguishes the work 

[183] 



r 



The Contemporary Short Story 

of W. W. Jacobs? Concerning his rivals in 
this country, it may be said that most of them 
are merely clever journalists. And some of 
them would be generous enough to admit it. 
Booth Tarkington's Penrod tales, however, show 
a style above journalese; likewise his novel, 
The Turmoil, which is a much-needed criticism 
of our American glorification of commercialism, 
of business life. 

Gouverneur Morris, in answering a query 
put to him as to the best short story in English, 
after naming several, humorously added: "I 
like my own stories better than anybody else's 
— until they are written." The remark is a 
complete justification of the desirability of 
spending laborious days and nights in acquiring 
a good English style, an adequate means of 
expression. Mr. Morris himself has it when he 
does not write too rapidly and when he is en- 
gaged on a theme which really pleases him. 
And he got it from masters like Stevenson, not 
from the advice of brisk and businesslike editors 
ofjperiodicals with immense circulation. The 
advice, however, of such editors as Henry Mills 
Alden of Harper's Magazine, or the late Richard 
Watson Gilder of the Century, never harmed, 
I suspect, any contributor's literary style. 

[184] 



Style and the Classics 

Turn back to that passage from Stevenson's 
The Sire de Maletroifs Door, on page 157, and 
observe the minute accuracy and fine literary 
conscience with which each word, each phrase, 
is chosen and is set in its proper place. Who, 
among the contributors to the Saturday Evening 
Post, could write such a passage to-day? Or 
take the even better passage from Markheim 
which describes the murderer's consciousness 
of his surroundings just after the crime: 

Time had some score of small voices in that shop, 
some stately and slow as was becoming to their great age; 
others garrulous and hurried. All these told out the 
seconds in an intricate chorus of tickings. Then the 
passage of a lad's feet, heavily running on the pavement, 
broke in upon these smaller voices and startled Mark- 
heim into a consciousness of his surroundings. He looked 
about him awfully. The candle stood on the counter, 
its flame solemnly wagging in a draught; and by that 
inconsiderable movement, the whole room was filled 
with noiseless bustle and kept heaving like a sea: the tall 
shadows nodding, the gross blots of darkness swelling and 
dwindling as with respiration, the faces of the portraits 
and the china gods changing and wavering like images 
in water. The inner door stood ajar, and peered into 
that leaguer of shadows with a long slit of daylight like 
a pointing finger. 

Here Stevenson has perhaps gone too far in 

[185] 



The Contemporary Short Story 

his search for the fresh and striking phrase — 
in "solemnly wagging," for instance. But his 
final simile, "like a pointing finger," is mar- 
vellously adapted to his purpose. The very 
vocabulary of such a passage is beyond most 
of our modern successful writers for magazines. 
And its prose rhythm is as carefully calculated 
and as pleasing in effect as its diction. Kip- 
ling, though he lacks the fine finish of Stevenson, 
is often nearly as felicitous in expression. His 
phrase, in Without Benefit of Clergy, expressing 
the fear of a husband for the safety of his loved 
ones, is perfection. "The most soul-satisfying 
fear known to man," he calls it. Shakespeare 
himself could hardly have bettered that. 

Take, again, that memorable passage from 
Thackeray's Henry Esmond l which pictures 
Beatrix Esmond as she comes down the stair- 
case: 

Esmond had left a child and found a woman, grown 
beyond the common height, and arrived at such a dazzling 
completeness of beauty that his eyes might well show 
surprise and delight at beholding her. In hers there was 
a brightness so lustrous and melting that I have seen a 
whole assembly follow her as by an attraction irresist- 
ible. . . . Her eyes, hair, and eyebrows and eyelashes 
were dark, her hair curling in rich undulations and waving 
1 Book ii, chap. vii. 

[186] 



Style and the Classics 

over her shoulders; but her complexion was as dazzling 
white as snow in sunshine, except her cheeks, which were 
a bright red, and her lips, which were of a still deeper 
crimson. Her mouth and chin, they said, were too large 
and full; and so they might be for a goddess in marble, 
but not for a woman whose eyes were fire, whose look 
was love, whose voice was the sweetest low song, whose 
shape was perfect symmetry, health, decision, activity, 
whose foot as it planted itself on the ground was firm but 
flexible, and whose motion, whether rapid or slow, was 
always perfect grace — agile as a nymph, lofty as a queen 
— now melting, now imperious, now sarcastic : there was 
no single movement of hers but was beautiful. As he 
thinks of her, he who writes feels young again, and re- 
members a paragon. 

After comparing such a passage with, say, a 
description of one of Gene Stratton Porter's 
latest heroines, or Robert W. Chambers', or 
Harold Bell Wright's, will anyone have the 
temerity to assert that there is no such thing 
as a classic? The very movement and melody 
of Thackeray's sentence beginning, "Her mouth 
and chin, they said," are far beyond the powers 
of most of our present-day writers of fiction. 
And the way in which he individualizes Beatrix 
is a lesson to those who have only one type of 
heroine, on which they play numberless varia- 
tions — the same being true of the illustrators 
who call themselves "artists." 

[187] 



The Contemporary Short Story 

How is it that Joseph Conrad, in his much- 
praised story, Heart of Darkness, gains his re- 
markable effect of atmosphere if not by style — 
by remarkable resources of expression? The 
temptation to quote without limit is strong, but 
I content myself with one passage which shows 
an almost perfect adaptation of means to end. 
It is from Conrad's story, The Lagoon. 1 I have 
italicized a few phrases which are particularly 
felicitous : 

The white man rested his chin on his crossed arms 
and gazed at the wake of the boat. At the end of the 
straight avenue of forests cut by the intense glitter of 
the river, the sun appeared unclouded and dazzling, 
poised low over the water that shone smoothly like a band 
of metal. The forests, sombre and dull, stood motionless 
and silent on each side of the broad stream. At the foot 
of big, towering trees, trunkless nipa palms rose from the 
mud of the bank, in bunches of leaves enormous and 
heavy, that hung unstirring over the brown swirl of eddies. 
In the stillness of the air, every tree, every leaf, every 
bough, every tendril of creeper and every petal of minute 
blossoms seemed to have been bewitched into an immo- 
bility perfect and final. Nothing moved on the river but 
the eight paddles that rose flashing regularly, dipped to- 
gether with a single splash; while the steersman swept 
right and left with a periodic and sudden flourish of his 
blade describing a glinting semicircle above his head. 
1 In Tales of Unrest. Doubleday, Page & Co. 

[188] 



Style and the Classics 

The churned-up water frothed alongside with a confused 
murmur. And the white man's canoe, advancing up 
stream in the short-lived disturbance of its own making, 
seemed to enter the portals of a land from which the very 
memory of motion had forever departed. . . . 

Astern of the boat the repeated call of some bird, a 
cry discordant and feeble, skipped along over the smooth 
water and lost itself, before it could reach the other shore, 
in the breathless silence of the world. . . . 

The course of the boat had been altered at right angles 
to the stream, and the carved dragon-head of its prow 
was pointing now at a gap in the fringing bushes of 
the bank. It glided through, brushing the overhanging 
twigs, and disappeared from the river like some slim and 
amphibious creature leaving the water for its lair in the 
forests. 

The narrow creek was like a ditch: tortuous, fabu- 
lously deep; filled with gloom under the thin strip of pure 
and shining blue of the heaven. Immense trees soared 
up, invisible behind their festooned draperies of creepers. 
Here and there, near the glistening blackness of the 
water, a twisted root of some tall tree showed amongst 
the tracery of small ferns, black and dull, writhing and 
motionless, like an arrested snake. The short words of 
the paddlers reverberated loudly between the thick and 
sombre walls of vegetation. Darkness oozed out from be- 
tween the trees, through the tangled maze of the creepers, 
from behind the great fantastic and unstirring leaves; 
the darkness, mysterious and invincible; the darkness 
scented and poisonous of impenetrable forests. 

One of Kipling's critics, Professor Henry S. 

[189] 



The Contemporary Short Story 

Canby, complains that he journalized the short 
story by making a religion of emphasis, and of 
emphasis without enough discrimination. Kip- 
ling's characters, says this critic, are always 
"immensely striking people," his phrases are 
unusual, even eccentric at times. But Professor 
Canby admits that he is a master of the specific 
word. The fact is that Kipling, both in phrase- 
ology and in character work, displays a trifle 
too much of that mere cleverness which is to-day 
accepted by too many editors as the equivalent 
— which it is not — of artistic and effective 
workmanship. Kipling's faults have proved 
easy of imitation, but his power of expression 
and his insight into human nature cannot easily 
be reproduced. 

It is a pretty widely accepted canon of literary 
criticism that greatness in substance and great- 
ness in style go together; yet it must be admitted 
that some American writers of fiction really 
have something to say without knowing how to 
say it adequately. Among certain magazine 
writers and editors there is altogether too evi- 
dent a tendency to decry college education and to 
glorify newspaper training. The results do not 
justify their position. The success of even the 
best humorous tales in the popular periodicals 

[190] 



Style and the Classics 

depends largely upon deftness of phrase. This 
is true of Harry Leon Wilson's Saturday Evening 
Post serial, Ruggles of Red Gap. Irvin Cobb, 
in his humorous articles, is often much too glib 
and journalistic, but he reveals a far better 
style in his fiction. The Belled Buzzard has real 
distinction. It was written in the atmosphere 
of Edgar Allan Poe rather than of the New 
York World — on which Mr. Cobb used to be a 
reporter. 

Of Eleanor Hallowell Abbott and the hys- 
terical style I shall make but brief mention. 
This author wrote well in Molly Make-Believe, 
but has since acquired a habit of torturing words 
and phrases which constitutes at times an actual 
atrocity. Eccentricity by shrieking emphasis 
seems to be her goal in her inferior works. Here 
is a sample — not of her worst — from a rather 
good story, Man's Place: 1 

"Ting-a-ling-ling-ling!" shrieked the Telephone. 

"Y-e-s?" crooned the Bride. 

"Is this Mrs. — Mrs. Frazer Hartley?" worried the 
Voice in the Telephone. 

"It is!" boasted the Bride. 

"Um-m," faltered the Voice in the Telephone. 
"Er-r-e-r, that is to say, I have a message for you — it's 
something about your husband!" 

1 Good Housekeeping, January, 1915. 

[191] 



The Contemporary Short Story 

"Oh, my goodness!" gasped the Bride. "Has any- 
thing happened to Frazer?" 

Well, whether anything has happened to 
Frazer or not, something evidently has hap- 
pened to the English style of Eleanor Hallowell 
Abbott — and that something is not desirable. 
She is an author who can write good English 
when she will; but she never learned this style 
from Shakespeare and the Bible. 

Set beside such a passage one from a real 
artist, William John Hopkins, author of that 
whimsically delightful novelette, The Clammer. 
The following is from his short story, With a 
Savour of Salt, in Harper's Bazar: i 

Nobody said much on the way out. Marian Wafer 
kept her thoughts to herself, and they must have been 
pleasant thoughts, for she was half smiling. No one 
would have needed to ask Helena and Hannibal what 
they thought, or even to wonder. It was written on their 
faces. The salt breeze was in their nostrils, and they 
heard all the little soft sounds : the whishing of the wind 
in the rigging and on the sails, an occasional soft cluck of 
a block when the boat rose to a sea, and the gentle bub- 
bling and hissing of the water as she drove through it. 

They were out of the lee of the land now, and the 
seas were great green seas, with tops that curled a little 
and broke in spreading rumbles of foam, which hissed 

1 September, 1915. 
[ 192 ] 






Style and the Classics 

itself away while the seas marched on majestically. It 
did not seem possible that anything could stop those 
rolling seas; not a mere shore. 

Another excellent passage which is partic- 
ularly notable for its figures of comparison is the 
following from the opening of Brunt, 1 by that 
conscientious and gifted writer, Fannie Hurst: 

In Spartan, which lies like a picture-puzzle between 
the tawny cornfields and the smutty coalfields of Illinois, 
the rain-crow flies low when autumn threatens, croaking 
of wet days and chest protectors, of nights filled with 
the commotion of wind and leaves flopped wetly against 
windowpanes like boneless hands tapping. 

Then, and oh, so surely, come the melancholy days 
themselves, and everybody's picket-fenced-in garden turns 
to mud with a pull to it, sucking in overshoes and oozing 
up slipperily over the plank sidewalks. Wagon wheels 
slither along the unmade streets as if cutting through cold 
grease. Children, rejoicing in double-session, bob home- 
ward an hour earlier beneath their enveloping umbrellas 
like a procession of low mushrooms. 

This is so carefully wrought and so successful 
in attaining precision that it is no surprise to 
learn that Miss Hurst writes her stories very 
slowly. Her future and that of such other 
young artists as Donn Byrne will be watched 
with great interest by lovers of real literature. 

1 Metropolitan, June, 1916. 
[193] 



The Contemporary Short Story 

For a fine maturity, penetration, and sim- 
plicity, as well as for remarkable vigor and di- 
rectness, nearly all living American writers of 
fiction must yield to Gertrude Atherton. There 
is no pretty ornamentation in her work, but a 
good deal of finish. 

It is worth noting that in the end some of 
the writers most sought even by the magazines 
of largest circulation are the artists, not the 
merchants. The writer without a literary con- 
science and a literary backbone has no assured 
future. It is to the men and women who have 
made their craft a fine art that editors and 
book publishers eventually come pleading most 
earnestly — among Americans, to such writers 
as Booth Tarkington, Edith Wharton, Gertrude 
Atherton, Winston Churchill, Fannie Hurst. 
Ten years ago one might have been inclined to 
add to this list the name of Gouverneur Morris. 
This paragraph is respectfully dedicated to 
authors who are grinding out serials at the rate 
of two or three a year. 

Even the apparently effortless naturalness of 
Charles E. Van Loan — who, with Booth Tar- 
kington, Peter B. Kyne and several others, is 
sadly underestimated by Mr. Edward J. O'Brien 
in his Best Short Stories of 1915 — is the product 

[194] 



Style and the Classics 

of a long apprenticeship rather than direct in- 
spiration; and the same is true of the spark- 
ling satires of Freeman Tilden. In both these 
cases one may perceive that style, in the final 
analysis, is the man himself — although no 
man can express himself adequately without 
long and painful study. Mr. Van Loan's praise- 
worthy naturalness is exhibited in almost all 
of his work; but particularly good examples 
are to be found in his volume of short stories, 
Buck Parvin and the Movies. This volume 
and Peter B. Kyne's Cappy Ricks, by the way, 
show an excellence of character drawing for 
which one often looks in vain in writers of greater 
' ' literary ' ' reputation . 

The style of Jack London and Rex Beach 
is full of personality; but in neither case is it a 
style uniform throughout like John Galsworthy's. 
And E. Phillips Oppenheim, prolific though he 
is, shows himself a surer craftsman than most 
Americans. Strong personality alone is not 
enough. One of the best examples in English 
literature of a towering personality is Jonathan 
Swift; but he was also a trained, conscientious, 
and therefore remarkably effective writer. Even 
in his inflammatory pamphlets, The Drapier's 
Letters, designed to arouse the Irish populace 

[195] 



The Contemporary Short Story 

against English misrule, there is a distinction 
of style as notable as its absolute clearness and 
naked simplicity. The most ignorant reader 
could understand it; and the most cultured 
could admire it. This is the ideal of a style for 
a periodical of large circulation. Swift's method 
of testing his clearness may be commended to 
literary workers who desire a large audience: 
he admitted to his final version of a manuscript 
no word or phrase which his domestic servant 
failed to comprehend. One may surmise that 
he regaled her only with selected portions as 
test passages; but he got many a useful hint 
thereby. Plainness and simplicity are not in- 
compatible with the highest literary art. Cer- 
tain subjects, however, call for a more extensive 
vocabulary and a more subtle vein of reflection 
than the uncultured can understand. The 
"groundlings" in the pit never got the benefit 
of the highest flights of Shakespeare; but they 
got enough else to keep them interested. 

Let a writer, at any rate, be himself. There 
is too great a tendency to-day to imitate, more 
or less openly, the greatest popular magazine 
successes. But what editors want most is 
individuality. Every succeeding year proves 
that there is no sure recipe for a "best-selling" 

[196] 



Style and the Classics 

novel. Some new writer steps in with a new 
idea and a new style and carries home the medal. 
Let a young author study a hundred successful 
writers of fiction, if he will, but let him remain 
true to himself. "No mantle-of-O. -Henry busi- 
ness, please, in advertising my work," remarked 
an excellent writer of humorous tales. And he 
was right. 

Perhaps the most practical result of the ac- 
quirement of a good English style, and therefore 
the one best worth leaving in one's mind, is 
the surprising change which it makes in the 
number of words necessary to express oneself 
clearly and effectively. Good style implies 
economy and brevity. It is only the great 
artist like Guy de Maupassant who finds a 
2500-word limit congenial in the short story. 
The amateur always finds it difficult to con- 
dense. It was Stevenson who said that the 
only test of writing that he knew was this: 
"If there is anywhere a thing said in two sen- 
tences that could have been as clearly and as 
engagingly and as forcibly said in one, then it's 
amateur work." 

The ability to write without waste is indeed 
the final goal of any good stylist — the ability 
to transfer from brain to paper the exact im- 

[197] 



The Contemporary Short Story 

pression recorded. How seldom this is done 
may be judged from Gouverneur Morris' re- 
mark that he likes his own stories best — ''until 
they are written." To lessen the escape of 
precious energy is the object of all ambitious 
craftsmen. And, whatever the average editor 
may say, they will keep ever before them that 
vision of perfection without which good work 
is impossible. 

EXERCISES 

1. Point out, in a recent issue of the Saturday Evening 
Post or Collier's, fifteen or more slang phrases in the 
short stories. Point out a similar number in the stories 
of O. Henry. Then apply the same test to Bret Harte's 
The Outcasts of Poker Flat, Stevenson's Will o' the Mill, 
and Kipling's The Man Who Would Be King. How many 
slang phrases, if any, do you discover? Find, if possible, 
in O. Henry's stories some slang which has already passed 
out of use. 

2. Copy from one of W. W. Jacobs' humorous tales 
at least ten brief phrases which show felicity of expres- 
sion — which characterize a person, or a situation, or 
which illustrate description of any sort. 

3. Make a list, from one of Edith Wharton's stories, 
or Kipling's, or O. Henry's, of synonyms or variations of 
"said," "replied," etc., in the dialogue. Notice also to 
what extent dialogue is used without any reference to 
the speakers. When this is clear, it is often the best 

[198] 



Style and the Classics 

method — although sometimes "stage directions" or 
indications of the emotion of the speaker are desirable. 

4. Compare Fannie Hurst's Power and Horsepower 
(in Just Around the Corner) with one of her tales in this 
volume written in Jewish dialect. Which do you prefer, 
and why? Do you find many dialect stories in current 
periodicals? 

5. Point out, if possible, any means by which brevity 
is secured in the tales of Maupassant, W. W. Jacobs, 
and Stevenson. Does the style of Stevenson seem to 
you to be too "literary" for the average magazine reader? 
Mention any recent stories in the Saturday Evening Post 
which seem to possess finish of style. About what pro- 
portion of such stories do you find in the Post ? In any 
other magazine of large circulation? 

6. Find a magazine story which is overweighted with 
adjectives, especially in pairs. Compare the effect with 
that of a passage from Kipling or Stevenson where the 
nouns and verbs are more noticeable than the adjectives. 

7. Select from a page of a short story by Kipling, 
Stevenson, W. W. Jacobs, Maurice Hewlett, Joseph 
Conrad, Poe, or Hawthorne five unusual words which 
seem to you admirably adapted to their purpose. Then 
see how many such words you can select from a page by 
any popular magazine writer. 

8. Find two passages in Stevenson's short stories 
which are particularly felicitous in sound-quality. (See 
the quotation from him at the beginning of this chapter.) 

9. Copy two passages from Kipling, one of which is 
written in a truly literary style and the other in a jour- 

[199] 



The Contemporary Short Story 

nalistic style — crisp, breezy, informal, but not very 
polished. Copy two similar passages from O. Henry. 

10. Hazlitt declared that whenever he misquoted 
Shakespeare he found that he had used a word or phrase 
inferior to the original. Try this yourself by partly 
memorizing — not too accurately, for this purpose — a 
famous passage such as a portion of one of the soliloquies 
in Hamlet and then writing it down and comparing it 
with the original. (Such a word as the one italicized in 
the following sentence is a good example of Shakespeare's 
felicity : "How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank ! " 

11. Select from three famous short-story writers three 
passages which differ sharply by revealing in each case 
the personality of the writer. Comment briefly on the 
personality in each passage. (Kipling, O. Henry, Mau- 
rice Hewlett, and Stevenson are good writers to examine 
for this purpose.) 

12. Point out, in a passage from the work of any good 
short-story writer, the specific (as contrasted with general) 
words. How many abstract words do you find? Why 
are more of these used in a treatise on philosophy than 
in a story? 

13. A good style is nearly uniform in texture through- 
out; it has very few "purple patches" which stand out 
in contrast to the rest. Copy from a magazine story a 
short passage which seems notably superior to what pre- 
cedes and follows. A few fines before and after it will 
have to be copied also, in order to show the contrast. 
(Thackeray is an excellent writer to study for uniformity 
of style — and for a wise philosophy of life as well.) 

[200] 



Style and the Classics 

14. Point out a passage, preferably at the opening of 
a story, which shows almost perfect naturalness of style 
— as if the tale were being "talked off" to the reader. 
(Sometimes you will find this "naturalness" associated 
with considerable carelessness.) 

15. Do you find any differences between Thackeray's 
style in his essays and that in his novels? Stevenson's? 
Poe's? What are these differences? (Narrative style 
should generally be less formal and in a certain sense 
less dignified than essay style.) 

16. Any good style, particularly in narration, shows a 
free use of figures. Make a list, from a page by any 
short-story writer of genuinely literary reputation, of 
the figures, especially comparisons (metaphor and simile). 

17. In the following passages point out, in the case 
of the pairs of words or phrases in parentheses, which ones 
were probably used by the author and why. In the case 
of a single word or phrase in parentheses state whether it 
should be retained or omitted, and why. This test may 
profitably be applied by an instructor to several pas- 
sages from good writers. He may then read the pas- 
sage as the author wrote it and explain why the author's 
word or phrase is superior to the one substituted. 

A little after sundown the full fury of the gale broke forth, 
such a gale as I have never seen in summer, nor, (seeing how 
swiftly it had come) (in consideration of the swiftness with which 
it had come), even in winter. Mary and I sat in silence, the 
house (shaking) (quaking) overhead, the tempest howling 
(outside) (without), the fire between us (hissing) (sputtering) 
with raindrops. Our thoughts were far away with the poor 
(devils) (fellows) on the schooner, or my not less unhappy uncle, 

[ 201 ] 



The Contemporary Short Story 

(houseless) on the promontory; and yet (now and then) (ever 
and again) we were startled back to ourselves, when the wind 
would rise and (buffet) (strike) the gable like (a giant) (a solid 
body), or (all of a sudden) (suddenly) fall and draw away, so 
that the fire (leaped into flame) (blazed up) and our hearts 
bounded (in our sides). Now the storm (in its might) would 
seize and shake the four corners of the roof, roaring like Levia- 
than (does) in anger. Anon, in a lull, cold (gusts) (eddies) of 
tempest moved (shudderingly) (like a ghost) in the room, lifting 
the hair upon^our heads and passing between us as we sat (listen- 
ing). And again the wind would break forth in a chorus of 
(sad noises) (melancholy sounds), hooting low in the chimney, 
wailing (gently, like the notes of a flute) (with flute-like softness) 
round the house. . . . 

Intervals of (dimness) (a groping twilight) alternated with 
spells of (utter) blackness; and it was impossible to trace the 
reason of these changes in the (horrible rapidity of the flying 
clouds) (flying horror of the sky). The wind blew the breath 
out of a man's nostrils; (the whole sky) (all heaven) seemed to 
thunder overhead like (a crashing avalanche) (one huge sail). 

Outside was a wonderful clear (night of stars) (starry night), 
with here and there a cloud (or two) still hanging, last (remains) 
(stragglers) of the tempest. It was near the (greatest height) 
(top) of the flood (tide), and the reefs were roaring in the (wind- 
less) quiet of the night (undisturbed by any wind). Never, 
not even in the height of the tempest, had I heard their (noise) 
(song) with greater awe. Now, when the winds were (gathered 
home) (silent), when the (ocean) (deep) was dandling itself 
back into its (sleep as of summer) (summer slumber), and when 
the stars (shed) (rained) their (gentle) light over land and sea, 
the voice of these tide-breakers was still raised for (harm) 
(havoc). They seemed, indeed, to be a part of the world's evil 
and the tragic (side) (facet) of life. 

[202] 



CHAPTER VI 

HOW MAGAZINES DIFFER 

It is doubtful whether those who aspire to a finer 
literary palate than is possessed by the vulgar herd 
are really so keenly appreciative as the innocent reader 
of published remarks might suppose. Hypocrisy in 
matters of taste — whether of the literal or metaphor- 
ical kind — is the commonest of vices. — Leslie 
Stephen, Hours in a Library. 

In walking down Fleet Street the other day, my 
eye caught the title of a book standing open in a book- 
seller's window. It was — "On the necessity of the 
diffusion of taste among all classes." "Ah," I thought 
to myself, "my classifying friend, when you have 
diffused your taste, where will your classes be? The 
man who likes what you like, belongs to the same class 
with you, I think. Inevitably so. . . . You get hold 
of a scavenger or a costermonger, who enjoyed the 
Newgate Calendar for literature, and 'Pop Goes the 
Weasel' for music. You think you can make him 
like Dante and Beethoven? I wish you joy of your 
lessons; but if you do, you have made a gentleman of 
him: — he won't like to go back to his costermonger- 
ing. " — John Ruskin, The Crown of Wild Olive. 

Although there is a certain family or racial 
resemblance among fiction magazines, it is true 
of several of the most successful that each has 

[203] 



The Contemporary Short Story 

aimed to occupy a distinct field. They have, 
of course, had imitators. The imitations, par- 
tial or total, of the Saturday Evening Post have 
been legion; but it has held its colossal circula- 
tion largely by sheer merit and editorial brains. 
The Cosmopolitan and its imitators stand pretty 
emphatically for what has come to be known as 
the "sex story" — that is to say, the story of 
passion as distinguished from the story of love. 
Controversial themes, "problem" stories on 
love and marriage, are treated with countless 
variations, most of them very minute. After 
reading such periodicals for a year, les jeunes 
filles may be pardoned for coming to the belief 
that life must be just one unhappy marriage 
after another, or just one wave of sex emotion 
after another. The action of such stories tends 
to take place chiefly within four walls rather 
than in the healthful oxygen of the open air. 
But a large number of people seem to like stories 
that are just a little naughty ; and so authors who 
in their early years used to write pretty well, like 
Robert W. Chambers and Gouverneur Morris, 
descend and give the public these stories. It was 
Harper s Weekly, I believe, that printed under a 
full-page portrait of Mr. Chambers: "He used 
to be an artist, and now earns $60,000 a year." 

[204] 



How Magazines Differ 

The mediocrity which sometimes results from 
marketing names rather than merit can hardly 
be better illustrated than by almost any of Mr. 
Chambers' short stories in Hearst's during 1914- 
1915. It is quite safe to say that some of them 
would never have been accepted, had they 
been written by an unknown author. It should 
be added, in justice to the Cosmopolitan, that, 
in its short stories at least, some effort has 
recently been made to get away from sex sub- 
jects and thus secure more variety and sanity. 
This tendency is best exhibited in those mirth- 
provoking studies of irrepressible boyhood, the 
Penrod tales, by Booth Tarkington. Not even 
lavish offers of gold, apparently, can make 
Mr. Tarkington cease to be an artist. Win- 
ston Churchill, too, writes as he likes, despite 
the fact that his serials are published in a sex- 
story periodical. The fact is, of course, that 
any well-established novelist or short-story w T riter 
is foolish if he yields to editorial demands that 
fail to fit his best talents. In the long run, 
he is likely to lose both money and reputation. 
But the beginner must certainly bow to editors 
if he wishes to "get on in the world." The best 
thing he can do, therefore, is to study a pretty 
large number of fiction magazines and then write 

[205] 



The Contemporary Short Story 

for two or three the policy of which is most favor- 
able to the development of his special ability 
and to his preferred subjects. 

The remark of one editor that it is now "past 
sex o'clock" in the magazine world may be true 
of the sex story in its most objectionable forms, 
particularly the "white-slave" story; but the 
financial success of certain minor magazines 
does not indicate desertion of the sex field. 1 
Unfortunately it is the frank and honest studies 
of sex, without the allurement of tales that 
deliberately distort the facts of real life, which are 
likely to be rejected by "snappy" and businesslike 
editors. One such story, a powerful and essen- 
tially unobjectionable study of a London cour- 
tesan after the early days of the European War, 
was rejected by several editors before its accept- 
ance by one who possessed courage. It told the 
truth about fife and was therefore not alluring. 
The specialty of the sex-story periodicals is to 
give young people wrong ideas about life. No 
story can be immoral which portrays human life 
as it is — and to the end. Shakespeare is never 
immoral. It is merely his language that seems 
coarse to our prudish generation and country. 

1 For a good satire on the sex story, see Freeman Tilden's That Night 
(in the volume bearing this title), or Julian Street's Living up to Letch- 
wood (Everybody's, July, 1914). 

[206] 



How Magazines Differ 

Better far that a young girl should read Shake- 
speare in an unexpurgated edition than many 
copies of a modern sex-story periodical — better 
not merely for her literary education but for her 
morals. 

For a sex story that is really beautiful and 
inspiring, turn to Eden Phillpotts' The Secret 
Woman among novels of the present century, 
and to Maurice Hewlett's Quattrocentisteria l 
among short tales of the past twenty -five years. 
The latter is historical, dealing with the painter 
Botticelli and a beautiful young girl, Simonetta. 
Great literature is full of sex themes and always 
must be; but in any good piece of literature 
these themes are treated with nobility. 

In contrast to the ignoble way of treating 
them, exhibited in certain contemporary maga- 
zines, Irvin Cobb's inspiring story, The Lord 
Provides, 2 is well worth mention. It depicts 
the funeral service of a young girl, an inmate 
of a house of ill fame, who had requested that 
she be buried from a church. The woman who 
runs the house comes to Judge Priest to per- 
suade him to undertake the negotiations — 
which, obviously, were likely to be difficult. 

1 In Earthwork out of Tuscany. 

2 Saturday Evening Post, Oct. 9, 1915. 

[207] 



The Contemporary Short Story 

The judge grants her request. He himself 
reads the Scripture at the church, Mrs. Matilda 
Weeks, a lady who doesn't observe precedents 
but makes them, plays the organ, and some of 
the leading citizens as well as the leading sin- 
ners of the town join the funeral procession. 
The man who prays — but let Mr. Cobb tell 
that: 

Then Judge Priest's eyes looked about him and three 
pews away he saw Ashby Corwin. It may have been he 
remembered that as a young man Ashby Corwin had 
been destined for holy orders until another thing — 
some said it was a woman and some said it was whisky, 
and some said it was first the woman and then the whisky 
— came into his life and wrecked it so that until the end 
of his days Ashby Corwin trod the rocky downhill road 
of the profligate and the waster. 

Or it may have been the look he read upon the face of 
the other that moved Judge Priest to say: 

"I will ask Mr. Corwin to pray." 

At that Ashby Corwin stood up in his place and threw 
back his prematurely whitened head, and he lifted his 
face that was all scarified with the blighting flames of 
dissipation, and he shut his eyes that long since had 
wearied of looking upon a trivial world, and Ashby Cor- 
win prayed. There are prayers that seem to circle round 
and round in futile rings, going nowhere; and then again 
there are prayers that are like sparks struck off from the 
wheels of the prophet's chariot of fire, coursing their way 

[208] 



How Magazines Differ 

upward in spiritual splendor to blaze on the sills of the 
Judgment Seat. This prayer was one of those prayers 
that burn. 

It is not necessary, at any rate, for a periodi- 
cal to be dull in order to be respectable. The 
Saturday Evening Post offers proof of respect- 
ability without dullness. It specializes in Amer- 
ican business and American humor, some of its 
most popular writers in the former field being 
Edwin Lefevre, Will Payne, and James H. 
Collins; and, in the latter, Irvin S. Cobb and 
Samuel G. Blythe. The Post, however, does 
not depend wholly or perhaps even chiefly upon 
fiction. The first page is generally occupied 
by an article. And a good deal of the fiction 
is full of the atmosphere and wise saws of 
American business. The "Actionized article," 
too, which relates in confession form, and anony- 
mously, some adventure in industry or the 
like, has been made famous by this enterprising 
periodical, whose editor, George Horace Lori- 
mer, has real ideas. The Post is edited emphati- 
cally for men. Its tone, from cover to cover, 
is virile — though plenty of women find it inter- 
esting. Its editorial page, owing to the necessity 
of placating its many subscribers, is less vigorous 
and provocative than that of Collier's, its rival 

[209] 



The Contemporary Short Story 

in the five-cent field; but it is amusing to 
discover how many New York editors call for 
stories "of the Saturday Evening Post type." 
It is the sincerest flattery that this periodical 
could receive. 

Notable, too, is the strong Western atmos- 
phere in the Post The breezy confidence of 
packing-house Chicago and Kansas City is 
clearly reflected in its pages. And much of 
its best fiction has an out-of-doors setting on 
the Far Western plains or desert. Charles E. 
Van Loan, Peter B. Kyne, and Eugene Manlove 
Rhodes are full of the spirit of the West. The 
truth is that this Western spirit is much more 
accurately representative of the genuine Amer- 
ican spirit than the more conventional feeling 
on the Eastern seaboard. In no other American 
periodical, at any rate, is there so much per- 
sonality, so much unity of feeling and tone, as 
in the Post. And this is due to the fact that it 
represents to a surprising degree the personal 
ideas and standpoints of its editor. What the 
public want, however, is generally what Mr. 
Lorimer wants and accepts; for he is a typical 
American business man of the desirable kind. 
Don't believe an editor when he solemnly as- 
sures you that he doesn't pick material in ac- 

[210] 



How Magazines Differ 

cordance with his personal likings; he can't 
help it. And the worst of periodicals is that 
in which the material is chosen by a vote of four 
or five persons rather than by one who knows his 
business. Moral for magazine-owners: Choose 
a strong editor and give him a free hand. 

Herbert Quick, himself a successful editor^ 
has some highly interesting ano\ valuable re- 
marks on these points in his article, How to 
Print What the People Want: 1 

The editor who does not know instantly whether the 
people want a certain story or not is adventuring in a 
field for which he is not fitted. If he is the right man in 
the right place, any argument on the matter will do more 
harm than good. 

Such an editor does not guess. He prints the thing 
which pleases him. He knows that what pleases him 
pleases his audience. In a field in which the reason 
fails, he is guided by something which in his own domain 
is far more trustworthy than reason — instinct. . . . 

There is an infallible recipe for printing what the 
people want. It is to secure an editor with universal 
sympathies, and leave the matter to him. . . . 

My three men with the editorial natures are Benjamin 
Franklin, Abraham Lincoln, and Peter Cooper. . . . 
Nothing human was alien to any of them. No manu- 
script possessing interest to any large number of people 
would have failed to interest any of them. 

1 Bulletin of the Authors' League of America, December, 1915. 

[211] 



The Contemporary Short Story 

There is no disputing the fact that we Ameri- 
cans are chiefly a commercial nation, with a 
preference for a certain broad rather than a 
refined or subtle humor. And it is upon this 
formula that the Post has so successfully built 
up its circulation. The vogue of such humorous 
serials as Harry Leon Wilson's Ruggles of Red 
Gap indicates the wisdom of the Post's editorial 
policies. If by its glorification of business and 
money-making it tends still further to philis- 
tinize an already Philistine nation, that is regret- 
table; but one must not look for too lofty an 
ideal in a highly popular periodical. The Post 
has at least kept its skirts — or trousers — clean. 
No parent need be afraid to leave it on the 
table for the growing boys and girls to read. 

Some magazines edited chiefly for men illus- 
trate the editors' belief that men care less for 
ornamental (and generally unintelligent) illus- 
trations than do women. The Popular, Adven- 
ture, and the All-Story Weekly are printed on 
cheap paper, without illustrations, and there- 
fore do not have to depend upon a large volume 
of advertising for their profits. The stories 
in these periodicals are largely direct, colorful 
tales of action and adventure, many with a 
breezy outdoor atmosphere. The lumberman, 

[212] 



How Magazines Differ 

the cowboy, the hunter — in short, the "men 
who do things" — bulk large in them. The love 
motive, though not absent, is generally second- 
ary. Sentiment frequently gives way to the 
worship of force and masculine vigor. In the 
monthly Bulletin of the Authors' League of 
America (May, 1915) the editor of the Popular 
announces that his "present especial needs" 
are "stories of action, written from a man's 
point of view." And in the same publication 
the editor of Adventure calls for "clean, swift- 
moving stories with well-drawn characters. No 
sex, no problems." In contrast may be quoted 
the request of a periodical which shall be name- 
less, for "stories of the erotic or risque type, 
without vulgarity!" Can any resourceful writer 
fill this prescription? 

The Popular has printed many excellent base- 
ball and prizefight stories by Charles E. Van 
Loan, and some vivid and convincing tales of 
wild animals by Miss Vingie E. Roe — which 
indicates that women write successfully even 
for [the most masculine periodicals. Many 
women authors will be found also in the Post. 
Indeed, Miss Agnes C. Laut even writes business 
articles for it. On the other hand, it may be 
mentioned that most of the editors-in-chief of 

[213] 



The Contemporary Short Story 

women's magazines are men. On the whole 
it may be said that a woman has a good chance 
of getting a story accepted by any man's peri- 
odical, and a man by any woman's periodical. 
It is merely a matter of subject and point of 
view. 

Good love stories are eagerly sought by almost 
all magazines; likewise good mystery and detec- 
tive stories. Arthur B. Reeve's Craig Kennedy 
tales, which have been printed every month in 
the Cosmopolitan for three or four years, furnish 
a good illustration of the vogue of the detective 
story. An uncommon fund of inventiveness 
and ingenuity is necessary for such work, but 
several writers have had at least fair success 
with it. The Sherlock Holmes tales are, of 
course, the modern leaders in this field. They 
exhibit a much higher literary art than Mr. 
Reeve's, in addition to a stronger popular ap- 
peal. G. K. Chesterton and Melville Davisson 
Post have also had notable success in the field 
of the mystery tale. 

The love story, as distinguished from the 
sex story, is the type of narrative having most 
nearly universal appeal. A good magazine 
aims to please some readers by certain stories 
and others by other stories, the editor believing 

[214] 



How Magazines Differ 

that no one person can like everything in any 
single issue. But a vivid love tale that rings 
true wins the vote of all readers with a spark 
of sentiment left in them. Such is Maria 
Thompson Daviess' charming narrative, The 
Poor Dear. 1 Two of the most human of Mau- 
passant's stories and, I suspect, most welcomed 
by American readers, are a beautiful tale of 
youthful romance, Moonlight, and a story of 
wedded contentment amid the simplest sur- 
roundings on a lonely island. This is entitled 
Happiness; and it is one of the best expositions 
of that elusive object of human pursuit which 
can be found in literature. Both these stories 
may be had in an English translation, in the 
volume, An Odd Number. They should be read 
by all persons who believe that Maupassant 
was always cold and unsympathetic. 

Kipling and Stevenson largely avoided the 
love motif in the short story, and attained great 
popularity notwithstanding. And a young au- 
thor, Donn Byrne, ventures to entitle a collec- 
tion of his spirited tales, Stories Without Women. 
In the short story, certainly, the love element 
is not so important as in the novel, nor is there 
space for so satisfactory a development. Yet 

1 Ladies* Home Journal, August, 1916. 

[215] 



The Contemporary Short Story 

in short fiction as well as in long it is true that 
"many waters cannot quench love." 

The purely sentimental — sentiment for which 
there is no adequate basis and which upon 
analysis is often seen to be absurd — is wel- 
comed in many women's magazines, particularly 
the Ladies 9 Home Journal. This chocolate- 
caramel type of fiction is at least harmless, as 
a rule, and is the clue to the success of many a 
"best-selling" novel. The Woman s Home Com- 
panion, Good Housekeeping, and the Pictorial 
Review also print a pretty sizable amount of 
this "sweet" type of short story and serial. 
I am tempted to say that a better indication 
of what kind of fiction appeals to the average 
woman versus what appeals to the average 
man could hardly be gained than by comparing 
several issues of the Ladies 9 Home Journal 
with several of the Saturday Evening Post — 
which, however, be it remembered, depends 
upon articles quite as much as upon fiction for 
popularity. And the large circulation of the 
Ladies 9 Home Journal seems to be due chiefly 
to its many departmental articles rather than 
to its fiction. 

The most significant distinction between peri- 
odicals is probably that between the old thirty- 

[216] 



How Magazines Differ 

five-cent conservatives, like Harper's and the 
Century, and the avalanche of fifteen-cent, ten- 
cent, five-cent, and now even three-cent peri- 
odicals which the past twenty-five years have 
produced. The best story of the month is 
now likely to appear in any one of a dozen maga- 
zines. A few notable writers remain faithful 
to the undoubtedly more intelligent audience 
of the thirty-five-cent magazine; but most 
writers have been tempted away by higher 
prices. It is only a kind of snobbery in criti- 
cism to maintain that the short stories in the 
old magazines are vastly superior to those in 
the new. With such literary artists as Joseph 
Conrad, W. W. Jacobs, and B/udyard Kipling 
writing short fiction for the fifteen-cent Metro- 
politan, Mary Wilkins -Freeman for the Pictorial 
Review and the Woman's Home Companion, and 
dozens of other deft literary workmen for dozens 
of other low-priced periodicals, it must be clear to 
all but the hopelessly prejudiced that the "old 
guard" no longer have a monopoly of the best 
fiction, or even a large share of it. They still 
have the best of a highly intellectual type, it is 
true, for these do not appeal to a wide audience 
and would not, therefore, be acceptable to a 
periodical of large circulation — 300,000 or more. 

[217] 



The Contemporary Short Story 

It is worth noting also that Joseph Conrad's 
novel, Victory, was published complete in one 
issue of Munsey's, and that Gertrude Atherton's 
Mrs, Balfame, a masterly study of a murder 
mystery, ran serially in the Blue Book. Verily, 
traditions are rapidly being shattered. The 
cheap magazines are being invaded by real 
literature! Authors who twenty or even ten 
years ago wrote only for Harper's, Scribner's, 
the Century, and the Atlantic now write also — 
or in some cases exclusively — for periodicals 
which cost readers less but pay writers more. 
The magic of the advertising columns is re- 
sponsible for this. 

Naturally, with the increase of the democratic 
periodicals, a new range of subjects has become 
popular. We no longer hear so much about 
the "four hundred," but more about the "four 
million." (See O. Henry's volume with this 
title.) Modern democratic criticism of Shake- 
speare, by the way, is directed against the un- 
conscious snobbery of his continual celebration 
of kings and princes. In the up-to-date peri- 
odical, however, the life of the manicure girl 
and the department-store employee — the latter 
frequently of the Jewish race — has been chron- 
icled with minute fidelity and no little literary 

[218] 



How Magazines Differ 

skill by Fannie Hurst and other authors. A 
good many imitations of her work have come 
to the present writer in manuscript. Much as 
the "cultivated" reader may dislike the dialect 
and habits of Miss Hurst's characters, he must 
admit that she has made very human figures 
of them. And such passages as her comparison 
of Fifth and Sixth Avenues, New York City, 
in The Spring Song, 1 reveal power of expression 
which no magazine writer would be ashamed to 
claim: 

One city block, and a social chasm deeper than the 
city block is long, separate the shiny serge of Sixth Avenue 
from the shiny silk of Fifth Avenue. The tropic between 
the Cancer of Sixth Avenue and the Capricorn of Fifth 
is an unimaginary line drawn with indelible pencil by 
trusts and tailors, classes and masses, landlords and 
lords of land. 

Such a line drawn through a marble-facaded, Louis- 
Quinze, thousand-dollars-a-month establishment on Fifth 
Avenue would enter the back door of a thirty-three- 
dollars-thirty-three-and-one-third-cents-a-month shop on 
Sixth Avenue and bisect the lowest of the three gilt balls 
suspended above the entrance. 

A mauve-colored art dealer's shop, where thirty canvas 
inches of Corot landscape rivaled in price thirty golden 
feet of Fifth Avenue acreage, rubbed shoulder-blades 
and ash cans with Madam Epstein's Sixth Avenue Em- 

1 Saturday Evening Post, May 23, 1914. 
[219] 



The Contemporary Short Story 

porium — Slightly Used Gowns. The rear of the De- 
Luxe Hotel, eight dollars a day and up, backed so im- 
minently on the rear of the Hoffheimer Delicatessen Shop 
that Mrs. Hoffheimer 's three-for-five dill pickles and 
three-for-flfteen herrings exchanged raciness with the 
quintessence of four-dollars-a-portion diamondback ter- 
rapin and attar of redheaded duckling. 

Thus the city's million dramas are crowded into a 
million crowded theaters. The society comedy drinks 
tea round the corner from the tenement tragedy of a 
child being born with no name and a crooked back; a 
flat-breasted Hedda Gabler, with eyes as meaningless as 
glass, throws herself before the black rush of a Subway 
train; and within that same train a beardless juvenile 
slips his hand into the muff of the blonde ingenue beside 
him, and at the meeting of finger tips their blood dances 
to a whole orchestra of emotions. 

In the third-floor, nine-room de-luxe suite of the De- 
Luxe Hotel, Madame Lina Feraldini, famous diva, abroad 
on her sixth farewell tour, juggled coloratura trills that 
were as fanciful as iridescent bubbles blown upward from 
a soap pipe. In the delicatessen shop, across the figura- 
tive chasm, Mrs. Hoffheimer plunged a large workaday 
arm elbow deep into a barrel of brine and brought up three 
warty pickles, whitish with rime and dripping wet. 

Another very democratic writer who has had 
a huge popular success is I Montague Glass, 
in his Potash and Perlmutter tales — vivid and 
racy studies of the Jewish garment trade and 
the men engaged in it. These stories have 

[220] 



How Magazines Differ 

proved great circulation-getters for the Post; 
and their success in dramatized form has been 
notable both in America and in England. It 
is almost the kind of work that Dickens might 
have done, had he written the modern short 
story. Mr. Glass's shrewd insight into the 
little tricks of American business and into the 
leading traits of the Jewish character is far 
above the mediocrity which the average maga- 
zine story exhibits. He has followed, consciously 
or unconsciously, Flaubert's advice to Mau- 
passant and has individualized every figure 
on his canvas. Some very creditable imitations 
of his work have appeared in the minor maga- 
zines; and many less creditable have been 
read by the present writer in manuscript. Most 
of them lack the humor and the searchlight 
vividness of character portrayal shown by Mr. 
Glass. The Jewish stories of Bruno Lessing 
are greatly inferior in both respects. 

One of the most curious conventions of the 
magazine short story is the rather rigid stand- 
ardization of length. Five thousand words 
has come to be the average length, with a range, 
however, from 3,000 to 7,000 and occasionally 
(in a two-part story) 10,000 or even 15,000. 
The Post, it should be added, not infrequently 

[221] 



The Contemporary Short Story 

prints a story of 9,000 words in one issue. 
These limits make short-story technique some- 
what difficult for the beginner and subject him 
to what seems cruel amputation and condensa- 
tion by ruthless editors. But the blue pencil 
is good for his soul — as he soon learns. 

The new writer's chance is of course much 
better in the minor magazines than in those of 
the greatest circulation, just as the young 
baseball pitcher generally has to work his way 
up from the "bush leagues." The Saturday 
Evening Post, however, introduces a dozen or 
more new writers of short stories every year. 
Much the same is true of the Popular, McClure's, 
Collier s, the Red Book, the American and sev- 
eral other high-class periodicals, including (partly 
from inability to pay high prices) the revered 
' ' thirty-five-centers. ' ' Some of these new writers 
succeed in getting only one story apiece accepted 
by the Post during a year; but others become 
regular contributors. The Smart Set used to 
uncover many new fiction writers of promise; 
and that genial and keen-eyed discoverer, Robert 
H. Davis — better known as "Bob" Davis — 
of the Munsey magazines, has brought forward 
many a newcomer who has later risen to fame 
and prosperity. There is, after all, no reward 

[222] 



How Magazines Differ 

comparable to the joy of discovery, whether 
the object is the North Pole or only a fresh and 
original short story. Keats has sung this joy 
in a famous sonnet: 

"Then felt I like some watcher of the skies, 
When a new planet swims into his ken." 

The young writer may be sure that, if he has 
unusual promise, too many editors are looking 
for him to admit any possibility of his being 
slighted. But, except in magazines that pay 
little, he must not expect to crowd out the 
established authors easily. 

There can be no doubt that the present high 
prices paid for the short stories and serials of 
famous authors are absurdly in excess of the 
real value of the stories. This is due to the 
furious competition of the leading magazines. 
Probably the Hearst magazines are most directly 
responsible for raising prices to this artificially 
high level. By putting authors under contract 
to produce short stories and serials for his maga- 
zines exclusively for a period of from three to 
five years, Mr. Hearst has obtained some of 
the best-known names. But it is a question 
whether, in the end, such a policy can be finan- 
cially most profitable — especially during periods 

[223] 



The Contemporary Short Story 

of business depression. Moreover, it relaxes 
the mental fiber of the average writer to be under 
contract instead of having to submit his work 
for approval. The Post, at any rate, which 
has declined to follow the Hearst policies, has 
had no difficulty in maintaining a circulation of 
two million copies in contrast to the Cosmo- 
politan's one million. 

The average price paid by a high-class peri- 
odical for a good short story by a new writer 
is from $75 to $300. Magazines of smaller 
circulation may pay only from $40 to $60. 
These prices are based on an average limit of 
5,000 words. The best-known writers may, 
and often do, command from $1,000 to $1,500, 
and in a few cases even more. Such prices 
did not exist ten years ago; and it may prove 
difficult to maintain them. As a result of 
unrestricted competition, however, they may 
profitably be compared with prices of some 
necessities of life which the public have to pay 
as a result of trusts and monopolies. 

Many magazines, in addition to holding their 
news-stand buyers — who in some cases greatly 
outnumber the direct subscribers — through se- 
rials with strong suspense, have also adopted 
the series idea in the short story. Arthur B. 

[224] 



How Magazines Differ 

Reeve, George Randolph Chester, Montague 
Glass, Booth Tarkington, Melville Davisson 
Post, Edna Ferber, Charles E. Van Loan, and 
Fannie Hurst are only a few among those who 
have rendered editors valuable service in this 
field. The policy of the most successful peri- 
odicals is to keep the public looking for more 
work by favorite authors. 

In general, book collections of short stories 
are looked at askance by publishers. They do 
not ordinarily prove profitable — and in most 
cases they do not have the literary finish that 
deserves preservation between the covers of a 
book. The average short story serves its pur- 
pose if it merely entertains. It is not a matter 
of great concern to the magazine editor whether 
it is forgotten a month after it is printed. But 
ambitious writers generally strive to produce 
something that shall have at least a measure of 
permanence. Booth Tarkington's Penrod tales 
well deserve their preservation in book form. 

Certain magazines differ from one another 
so greatly in their policies that, if a short story 
is refused by one, it is frequently no indication 
that it will not be accepted by another with an 
equally large circulation. In one case a senti- 
mental love story with the inevitable charming 

[225] 



The Contemporary Short Story 

stenographer and the rich employer was refused 
by the Smart Set and accepted by the Ladies' 
Home Journal. In the Bulletin of the Authors' 
League, already referred to, the Smart Set 
announces that it desires fiction "dealing with 
well-educated and sophisticated persons." 

A short story with slow movement and subtle 
character analysis might be refused by the 
Saturday Evening Post and accepted by Har- 
per's. Literary finish would have more weight, 
too, with the editor of Harper s or Scribner's 
than with the editor of the Post. The present 
writer happens to know that a strong and sin- 
cere sex story was refused by the Cosmopolitan 
— presumably because the author was not 
famous enough — and accepted by the Post. 
Evidently, "you never can tell." If you have 
faith in your story, it pays to try at least a 
dozen magazines — better, two dozen — before 
concluding that it is unsalable. An excellent 
love story (but not a sex story) was refused by 
a sex-story periodical and accepted by Collier s. 
An admirable story of the patent-medicine evil, 
rejected by Good Housekeeping, was taken by 
the Post. A fine character study by a pretty 
well known author failed to please the editor 
of Harper's Bazar but was printed in Harper's 

[226] 



How Magazines Differ 

Magazine. Another was refused by the Smart 
Set and accepted by the Century. A series of 
stories, powerfully and brilliantly written but 
devoid of love interest, was reluctantly returned 
by a sex-story magazine of large circulation and 
found a place in McClure's — which, however, 
rejected a tale of some distinction that was later 
printed in the Pictorial Review. A short serial, 
with a romantic love element, which was refused 
by Good Housekeeping was accepted by the 
Ladies 9 Home Journal and, when printed, was 
introduced by an enthusiastic editorial note. 
An excellent humorous story, with a newspaper 
atmosphere, which proved unsuited to one of 
the periodicals of largest circulation was taken 
by Scribner's. These little things simply add 
the fascination of uncertainty to the game of 
trying to please editors. For obvious reasons, 
I have omitted the names of the authors and 
the titles of the stories. 

Often a theme which seems to one editor too 
unpleasant is welcomed by another. Some of 
the stories of Mary E. Wilkins-Freeman are 
voted drab and depressing by readers of the 
highly popular magazines; but the editor of 
Harper's does not fear their effect on his intelli- 
gent public. Is a good story about a defective 

[227] 



The Contemporary Short Story 

child undesirable, no matter how good? May 
a physically deformed person be introduced 
successfully into a short story as its hero? Can 
a poorhouse scene be made inspiring? Upon 
such questions the editorial fraternity will show 
no general agreement. 

One editor states that a tale intended for his 
magazine need not have the conventional happy 
ending, "if the story is striking." The happy 
ending is, to intelligent persons, an absurd 
convention. Yet even Kipling altered the som- 
bre close of The Light That Failed, for dra- 
matic presentation. The average person, at 
whom periodicals with large circulations are 
aimed, dislikes with a purely childish dislike 
any unhappy ending, however logical and in- 
evitable. He prefers to have life falsified for 
his delectation; and, being the buyer, he gets his 
wish. Compare the department-store motto: 
"The customer is always right." 

EXERCISES 

1. What general difference in the kind of society 
treated do you find in Harper's (or Scribner's) as com- 
pared with the Saturday Evening Post (or the Ladies' 
Home Journal)? What general difference in the lit- 
erary style is shown in the short stories in these maga- 

[388] 



How Magazines Differ 

zines? Is there any American magazine which you read 
especially for its literary quality? 

2. Compare an issue of the Post with one of the 
Cosmopolitan, with respect to subjects for short stories. 
Do you find the atmosphere of American business life 
reflected in the latter magazine? Domestic life? Mar- 
riage problems? In what respects is the Post sharply 
differentiated from the Cosmopolitan? Do you find as 
much difference between the Post and Collier's? What 
authors write for both the Post and the Metropolitan? 
The Post and Collier's? The Post and Harper's? (The 
list of authors and stories in The Best Short Stories of 
1915 gives data for this.) 

3. Do you find any evidence that it is necessary for 
a periodical to print some stories that are salacious, in 
order to obtain a large circulation? Which do you con- 
sider the cleanest and safest magazines for family 
reading? 

4. Among the following magazines, which seem to 
favor brisk action and a so-called "punch" at the close, 
and which prefer a quieter type of story, with emphasis 
on genuine character portrayal and some finish of style? 
— Harper's, All-Story Weekly, Pictorial Review, Adven- 
ture, Popular, Atlantic, Metropolitan, Red Book, Century. 
(In some cases you may find it hard to draw a line, for 
stories of both types appear in certain periodicals.) 

5. What are the differences in the character of the 
fiction in a typical woman's magazine, such as the Ladies' 
Home Journal, and a typical man's magazine, such as 

[ 229 ] ' 



The Contemporary Short Story 

the Saturday Evening Post? Compare, on this score, the 
Woman's Home Companion with Collier's; Good House- 
keeping with the Popular. 

6. Which periodicals print most humorous stories? 
Which print the best ones? Which are most addicted to 
extremely sentimental love stories? 

7. In what magazine or magazines do the short 
stories of W. W. Jacobs appear? Margaret Deland? 
Booth Tarkington? Irvin S. Cobb? Katharine Fuller- 
ton Gerould? Joseph Conrad? Conan Doyle? John 
Galsworthy? Mary E. Wilkins-Freeman? Gouverneur 
Morris? Rudyard Kipling? Peter B. Kyne? Corra 
Harris? Melville Davisson Post? Donn Byrne? Mon- 
tague Glass? Edith Wharton? Fannie Hurst? Charles 
E. Van Loan? Freeman Tilden? 

8. What periodicals do not always insist on a "happy 
ending" for a short story? What ones seem to allow an 
author most freedom as to subjects and methods? 

9. Point out two magazines which seem to you to 
show most variety of contents and two which show 
least variety. 

10. Mention three or more magazines which print 
stories that you consider trashy. Give reasons for your 
opinions. 

11. What magazine writers have had their short 
stories printed in book form? Do you consider all of 
these superior to the stories of authors whose work has 
not been thus collected? 

[230] 



How Magazines Differ 

12. Is great popularity, in the case of magazine stories, 
inconsistent with literary permanence? What estimate 
do you place upon the intelligence and taste of the aver- 
age American reader of periodicals? 

13. Is there any living writer of short stories whom 
you consider equal, or nearly equal, as a literary artist, 
to Poe or Maupassant or Stevenson? Give reasons for 
your opinion. 

14. What periodicals print stories that require con- 
siderable thought on the part of the reader? Have you 
learned anything practical about human life and human 
nature from any magazine stories? 

15. Which do you consider the best ten American 
magazines that print fiction? The worst five? Why? 

16. Do you think that American novels exhibit higher 
literary art than American short stories? Why, or why 
not? 

17. Compare (if you can obtain a copy) an issue of 
the British edition of the Strand with an issue of the 
Saturday Evening Post and one of the Pictorial Review, 
in order to study the differences between British and 
American taste in fiction. Do you prefer the Strand 
stories? Why, or why not? 

18. Keep a list, for six months, of the magazine stories 
which have pleased you most; and jot down, in each case, 
a briefly expressed reason. 

19. Make a list of the subjects — love, mystery, busi- 
ness, outdoor adventure, the supernatural, etc., — in one 

[231] 



The Contemporary Short Story 

issue of Harper's, Good Housekeeping, Saturday Evening 
Post, Metropolitan, and Scribner's. Then make a list of 
the subjects in one or more of these periodicals in a bound 
volume, in order to ascertain the editor's policy. 

20. In an issue of the Century, American, Saturday 
Evening Post, McClure's, Harper's, Popular, or Collier's, 
compare a story by a new writer with one by a famous 
writer. Which do you consider the better story, and 
why? In general, do you prefer to read tales by new 
authors or by old ones? 

21. Find, in a magazine of not over 200,000 circu- 
lation, a well- written story which you think would be 
likely to arouse the resentment of some readers on ac- 
count of its criticism of any aspect of religious, social, 
or political life. Have you ever found in a magazine a 
story that showed strong political partisanship? A strong 
prejudice in favor of or against any religious sect? 



[232] 



CHAPTER VII 

A MAGAZINE OFFICE FROM THE INSIDE 

The office of a fiction magazine presents a de- 
cided contrast to a college classroom. It is 
not academic. The editor, who is likely to be 
a brisk and businesslike rather than a studious 
person, dreads few things more than what he 
calls a "high-brow" atmosphere. For his busi- 
ness is to please his hundreds of thousands of 
readers. They are not forced to buy his maga- 
zine, as students are forced to buy a textbook 
and to listen to the lectures of an instructor. 
Hence he must ascertain, not what people ought 
to want, but what they actually do want. True, 
he generally contrives to educate them to at 
least a trifling extent — sometimes to a con- 
siderable extent — yet his mental attitude is 
and must be wholly different from that of a 
college teacher. He lives, like most of his sub- 
scribers, in the informal, breezy, commercial 
world; and he realizes that they read fiction 
during their leisure hours, after they have fin- 
ished the hard work of the day or the week. 

[233] 



The Contemporary Short Story 

To criticize his periodical from any other stand- 
point is to do it an injustice. And at least he 
escapes that frequent bane of the college class- 
room, pedantry. He is a practical man, and he 
gets results. 

The systematic handling of manuscripts, how- 
ever, and of all details, presents a salutary lesson 
to many an academic institution. One who 
should step inside a typical magazine office 
and be introduced to its methods by an editorial 
acquaintance would be impressed by the high 
efficiency shown on every hand. All manu- 
scripts, for example, are indexed as soon as they 
arrive, so that future reference will indicate 
the author of a particular story, the date when 
it was submitted, and any other desirable in- 
formation. Generally a separate card index 
is kept for the accepted manuscripts. All 
correspondence is filed, of course. 

The day's mail once entered on the card index, 
the first reader takes up his (or frequently her) 
task. A rapid glance at nine-tenths of the man- 
uscripts suffices. If the first page is hopeless, 
he merely runs through the others to confirm 
an already pretty well formed opinion. A 
few stories, however, he peruses with care and 
passes up to the next reader, who in some cases 

[234] 



A Magazine Office from the Inside 

is the editor-in-chief but more frequently, in 
the office of a large periodical, a second sub-edi- 
tor. A brief comment (sometimes merely " no ") 
is placed upon a slip of paper and fastened to the 
manuscript. If the comments of all editors 
are favorable, the story is likely to be accepted. 
And it sometimes happens that the editor-in- 
chief overrules unfavorable verdicts of his as- 
sistants. He is also the first person to read 
some of the important manuscripts by well- 
known authors. He bears in mind, of course, 
not only the merit of a story but its availability 
for his immediate purposes. Not infrequently 
he performs the kindly office of suggesting to a 
writer whose tale he has rejected a likely market; 
and it often sells in that market. This is one 
of several indications that the average editor, 
after all, is a human being and not an ogre. A 
main reason for his rejection may be that he 
has ordered so many stories from famous authors 
that he has little space left for volunteers. He 
cannot afford to trust to chance for his best 
features. He generally wants to encourage 
the new writer, however, for his magazine de- 
pends to some extent upon a constant supply of 
new blood. 

The contributor should remember that the 
[235] 



The Contemporary Short Story 

editor's plans for each issue must be made some 
weeks or (in the case of a monthly magazine) 
several months ahead. Generally a meeting 
of the most important members of the editorial 
staff, including the art editor, is held at regular 
intervals. The contents of each page are set 
down on a schedule sheet, and as fast as the final 
page-proof is read this fact is generally indicated 
on the sheet. In some offices, suggestions and 
criticisms from sub -editors are welcomed; in 
others, the will of the editor-in-chief is absolute 
law. In the final analysis it has to be, if the 
magazine is to be highly successful. But the 
atmosphere of the staff meeting is generally 
chatty and jocose rather than severe. 

It is commonly the duty of some editor, or 
of more than one, to read a certain propor- 
tion of rival magazines, in order to make sure 
that they are not getting new ideas first. Some 
editors-in-chief, however, pay little attention 
to rivals. Indeed, one well-known editor main- 
tains that heads of various periodicals see each 
other too often, in clubs and elsewhere, and do 
not keep their ideas sufficiently to themselves. 
On the whole, therefore, there is perhaps some- 
thing desirable in the Philadelphian isolation of 
three important magazines. Whether he sees 

[ 236 ] 



A Magazine Office from the Inside 

his rivals or not, the average editor is constantly 
on the alert; and if anyone steals a march on 
him he resolves that it shall not happen again. 
All this presupposes abundant vitality, opti- 
mism, the business instinct, and almost unfail- 
ing good judgment. A competent editor rarely 
has occasion to change his mind about a manu- 
script which he has once accepted. A new edi- 
tor, however, generally declines to use certain 
stories and articles purchased by his predecessor 
— particularly if that predecessor has lost his 
position through poor judgment on manuscripts. 
In reality the editor's judgment is his chief 
stock in trade. He cannot afford to be influ- 
enced by friendship with a contributor; or by 
anything else save the merit and availability 
of the manuscript itself. 

On the other hand, courtesy is always an 
asset, whether shown by a letter or in an inter- 
view. It is generally a mistake for an editor 
to make himself too inaccessible. The master 
cultivates the art — a very delicate one — of 
cutting off an interview after all necessary re- 
marks have been made by himself and his visitor. 
Generally it is only the bore who has occasion 
to hate the editorial fraternity. For the average 
editor likes to exchange ideas with a possible 

[237] 



The Contemporary Short Story 

contributor and to encourage him by an infusion 
of his own contagious optimism and enthusiasm 
for good fiction and good articles. "There are 
some editors from whom I always carry away 
something," said a successful writer. Those 
are the real editors, the born editors. Even if 
an editor-in-chief is too busy himself to see a 
visitor, he often sends one of his assistants out 
to answer inquiries and offer useful suggestions. 
Of course editors differ greatly in personality. 
Some are gruff and inconsiderate, yet continue 
to be successful in spite of this serious handicap. 
Some are destitute of the highest qualities of 
a gentleman — but not many. Most are likable 
men and women who maintain an esprit de corps 
in the whole organization. The Curtis peri- 
odicals have been highly successful in this re- 
spect; but they are not alone in their success. 
Some magazines have acquired an enviable 
reputation among authors by their promptness 
in rendering a decision on a manuscript. The 
Saturday Evening Post and the Pictorial Review, 
for example, commonly accept or return a story 
within a week. A proper business system al- 
ways makes this practicable. In fact, it is 
distinctly discourteous to an author, as well 
as unnecessary, to hold a manuscript longer 

[238] 



A Magazine Office from the Inside 

than a fortnight. Several periodicals, never- 
theless, persist in their dilatory methods; and 
as a result they ordinarily do not get the first 
offer of a story. Some even delay a decision for 
five or six weeks; but these are seldom first- 
class magazines. The beginner, of course, has 
to be tolerant of such unbusinesslike methods. 
The successful writer, on the other hand, gen- 
erally confines his efforts to such periodicals 
as are conducted on fair business principles — 
which include, first of all, promptness. All 
first-class magazines, moreover, pay immedi- 
ately upon acceptance. 

The relation of the publisher, the owner, to 
his editors is often of great importance. The 
slave-driver and the officious meddler seldom 
make large profits in the magazine field. The 
wise owner selects a competent, if possible a 
great, editor and leaves editorial policies to 
him. This is one of the secrets of the success 
of the Saturday Evening Post; and the absence 
of non-interference was the chief reason for the 
decline of a periodical which fifteen years ago 
had a large circulation and a large amount of 
advertising matter. An owner who treats his 
editor like an office boy has only himself to 
thank for future lack of financial prosperity. 

[239] 



The Contemporary Short Story 

To both owner and editor, of course, business is 
business; but it is a poor office in which some 
sentiment warmer than that of business does 
not circulate. Some expert ' has recently dis- 
covered that even hens will lay more eggs for 
you if you pet them. No one can do his best 
work for a man whom he dislikes. And it is 
the business of all of us, in this world, to make 
ourselves agreeable as well as efficient. It will 
be found that the inside of most magazine offices 
is a companionable place, peopled by reasonably 
kind and cheerful inhabitants. The contagious 
laugh of one great editor can be heard three 
offices away. He meets hard work day after 
day with the gayety of one who is always more 
than equal to his task. 

It may surprise some persons to learn that 
the amount of advertising in a magazine gener- 
ally bears a pretty definite ratio to the excel- 
lence of the "reading matter" — the stories and 
articles. For a good fiction magazine is read 
by alert people who prove to be a better buying 
public than the other sort. The moment a 
periodical becomes somewhat dull, even if its 
circulation does not fall off perceptibly, it be- 
comes a poor "buy" for advertisers. This 
has frequently been tested by the "keyed ad.," 

[240] 



A Magazine Office from the Inside 

which asks the buyer to name the magazine 
in which he saw the advertisement or, more 
commonly, induces him to clip a corner contain- 
ing a number that identifies the magazine. The 
advertising manager, as well as the circulation 
manager, also has something to say, in a few 
cases, about the editorial policy. His sugges- 
tions, if he is a highly competent man, should 
naturally prove worthy of the editor's serious 
consideration. Not that he often directs the 
editorial policy of the periodical in any given 
instance; but he may remind the editor that a 
magazine is made to sell — if perchance that 
alert individual himself ever forgets this business 
principle. 

One of the best illustrations of the relation 
of interesting reading matter to increase in 
advertising is the "boom" which Scribner's 
enjoyed while it was publishing the African 
game trail sketches of ex-President Roosevelt. 
The volume of advertising which it contained 
during that memorable year is highly significant 
— as is also the fact that the advertising fell 
off again shortly afterward. Colonel Roose- 
velt's political articles in the Metropolitan seem 
to be somewhat less valuable to the advertising 
department of that magazine; but they are 

[241] 



The Contemporary Short Story 

undoubtedly an asset. It is not merely the 
number of subscribers, but the kind, which 
determines the value of advertising columns to 
a merchant. Obviously, for example, it would 
be folly to advertise high-priced luxuries in a 
five-cent weekly, but wisdom to advertise them 
in a thirty-five-cent monthly like Harper's. 

The outsider may be prone to ask whether 
all periodicals are purely business "proposi- 
tions" or whether some of them aim to benefit 
their readers by the fiction and articles and to 
protect them from fraud and injury through the 
advertising columns. Fortunately a large pro- 
portion of the leading periodicals do have some 
educational value and do exclude objectionable 
advertisements, no matter how much money 
is lost thereby. The Post, for example, even 
rejects cigarette advertising. During the finan- 
cial stress of the first year of the European War 
it let down the bars to a limited number of 
cigarette manufacturers; but it has since put 
these bars up again. No patent medicines, 
unless of proved worth, can gain entrance to 
the columns of a reputable periodical. And 
many of the best magazines reject all liquor 
advertising. It is not only good morals to do 
this, but in the long run good business also. 

[242] 



A Magazine Office from the Inside 

A first-class periodical should be in all respects 
dependable. Some now guarantee that all ad- 
vertised goods are strictly as represented. A 
censor employed by the magazine takes the 
investigation of doubtful cases as his province. 
Nearly all of the best magazines have these 
censors; and they earn their salaries. 

Sometimes a periodical performs definite ser- 
vices for its subscribers through its department 
editors, who are paid to answer thousands of 
letters annually. The inquiries cover a wide 
range; and it is to be presumed that a large 
majority of the answers prove practical. Al- 
though this system is much more characteristic 
of women's magazines than of men's, yet the 
financial editors of several non-feminine peri- 
odicals give valuable advice on investments. 
This again illustrates the fact that a periodical 
which has been built up by the good-will of its 
thousands of buyers — and the news-stand pur- 
chasers often outnumber the direct subscribers 
— should recognize this good-will by some sub- 
stantial services. A good magazine, like a 
public office, is a public trust. 

The influence of motion pictures on the popu- 
lar magazines is decidedly noticeable to an 
insider. The fact that "people want pictures" 

[243] 



The Contemporary Short Story 

has become so firmly impressed upon the edi- 
torial fraternity that they have increased the 
size and number of their illustrations until 
some periodicals have become veritable picture 
books. The news photograph has appeared, 
too, in various weeklies and seems to be a wel- 
come innovation. Several periodicals have also 
changed from the old standard size to the Post 
or the American size in order to get a larger page 
for illustrations and to give more scope for 
variety. The main purpose, however, in making 
this change was undoubtedly to print adver- 
tising side by side with reading matter in the 
back pages — these "back pages" generally 
constitute more than half of the total number — 
and thus secure a larger advertising revenue. 
From the standpoint of the reader, it is desirable 
to separate the two kinds of matter; but the 
modern popular magazine is run partly for the 
benefit of the advertiser. It makes its money 
largely through its advertising revenue rather 
than through its subscription price. Indeed, 
more than one periodical is virtually given away; 
it would be printed at a heavy loss were it not 
for the advertisements. What happens to a 
magazine which attacks "malefactors of great 
wealth" who are advertisers is shown in the 

[244] 



A Magazine Office from the Inside 

financial failure of Hampton s some years ago. 
It was ably edited, but its advertising revenue 
fell off on account of attacks on vicious corpo- 
rations, it was unable to secure loans from the 
large New York banks, and finally it was 
obliged to suspend publication. The "muck- 
raking" era for periodicals now seems to be 
pretty well over. Several magazines show com- 
mendable courage in their editorial columns; 
but they are somewhat cautious about offending 
many large advertisers. This is not equivalent, 
however, to saying that the advertisers control 
the policies of the magazines. Nor do they 
control the best newspapers. 

The casual observer often misses the close 
relationship of the magazine to the newspaper. 
Such fiction-and-article weeklies as the Post 
and Collier's are in reality glorified news-sheets. 
In the case of the new three-cent Every Week, 
this relation is emphasized by the price. To 
a lesser extent the relation holds for the month- 
lies also. Even the fiction is often founded 
on ideas or customs recently introduced. This 
is illustrated in the subjects of the detective 
stories of Arthur B. Reeve, which aim to keep 
up to the minute on scientific discoveries. Most 
magazine editors have been newspaper men, 

[245] 



The Contemporary Short Story 

and the atmosphere of the newspaper office is 
pretty accurately preserved. The "nose for 
news" and the desire to make a "scoop" are 
prominent. Both kinds of editors commonly 
impress one first by their great physical energy, 
though there are notable exceptions even among 
the leaders. They are business men rather 
than literary men — though here again there 
are notable exceptions. It is the commercial 
atmosphere of America and the development 
of the advertising idea which are responsible 
for the surprising number of our periodicals as 
compared with those of other countries. Our 
glorification of the "practical" and contempt 
for the beautiful is nowhere so well illustrated 
as in the outrageous prevalence of advertising 
signs along our highways and railways. 

Inside the average magazine office one is likely 
to feel that he is still in a commercial atmosphere. 
Although a few editors give a writer of good 
fiction a free hand, most of them are prone to 
prescribe certain subjects and methods which 
subscribers seem to prefer. The contributor is 
therefore constantly in danger of being turned 
into a literary hack — more so after he becomes 
famous, perhaps, than before. If he wishes 
to turn out South African tales, he is reminded 

[246] 



A Magazine Office from the Inside 

that American subjects are best for American 
readers. If he wishes to develop tragedy in the 
short story, he is emphatically warned that sub- 
scribers will endure only a small proportion of 
unpleasant subjects; and, particularly, unpleas- 
ant endings. If, in a word, he wishes to be 
artistic, he is told that he must be business- 
like. As a result, this businesslike quality is 
reflected in the faces of altogether too many of 
our American novelists and short-story writers. 
They compare very unfavorably with the faces 
of British novelists. A few editors, however, 
really desire to develop an author on the lines 
of his best possibilities; and these editors have 
an opportunity to do a great service to American 
literature. No one who has followed the dis- 
appointing career of such fiction writers as Rex 
Beach and Jack London can fail to regret that 
they have not had the best editorial advice and 
encouragement. 

The magazine office has journalized too many 
of our promising young artists. The tempta- 
tion to make money has in a large majority 
of cases proved too much for their literary 
consciences. Carlyle long ago referred con- 
temptuously to this fault in Scott — "writing 
extempore novels to buy farms with." Too few 

[247] 



The Contemporary Short Story 

magazine owners realize to the full their public 
responsiblity. Most of them are honest busi- 
ness men, but they are indifferent or hostile to 
literary art. They will not listen with patience 
to anything that is inconsistent with large prof- 
its. On the whole, it is surprising, therefore, 
that so large a proportion of really good short 
stories creep into our highly popular periodicals. 
Perhaps the most optimistic thought that can 
be left in the mind of the person who is inter- 
ested in the future of American fiction is that 
literary finish and literary art, provided they 
are accompanied by lively action and complete 
intelligibility, are not scorned even by com- 
mercialized editors. After all, therefore, busi- 
ness is not always incompatible with art. 



[248] 



APPENDIX 
SUGGESTIONS FOR BEGINNERS 

1. Submit typewritten copy only. Editors are too 
busy to look for gems in half illegible manuscripts. 
Double-space the lines. Place your address, or both 
name and address, in the upper left-hand corner of the 
first sheet. In the upper right-hand corner indicate the 
approximate number of words. Mail your manuscript 
flat or folded, not rolled. 

2. Enclose, if possible, not merely return postage, 
but a stamped and addressed envelope. In any case, be 
sure that the postage is sufficient. Magazines are con- 
stantly receiving manuscripts that are only partly prepaid. 

3. Don't ask an editor for criticism. If your manu- 
script is promising, you will probably get a brief letter of 
encouragement without asking for it. 

4. Don't expect an editor to grant you an interview 
until he has expressed interest in your work. Remember 
that some hundreds, perhaps thousands, besides yourself 
are submitting manuscripts to him. 

5. Get a friend or an acquaintance who is not too 
indulgent to your faults to criticise your work before 
sending it to a magazine. And don't be deceived by the 
"foolish face of praise" which some of your closest friends 

[249] 



The Contemporary Short Story 

may exhibit. 1 Hundreds of people are attempting to write 
short stories who ought to be engaged in occupations 
better suited to their abilities. Story-writing requires 
special aptitude as well as special study. Ability to 
create character and write dialogue presupposes a pos- 
session of the dramatic faculty — the faculty of putting 
yourself in another person's place. Some poor story- 
writers make good writers of magazine articles. 

6. Read at least half a dozen issues of each of a 
large number of periodicals, in order to ascertain what 
subjects and methods of treatment are preferred. Don't 
try to sell your goods to a market of widen you are ig- 
norant. You can get a pretty good idea of current 
fiction by reading for a year each issue of the Saturday 
Evening Post and Harper's Magazine, or any other highly 
popular periodical and any other conservative and 
thoughtful one. Cut out and preserve any stories that 
especially please you; reread them at various times and 
study their technique. If you fasten the sheets together 
with metal clips, you can keep them in large envelopes 
and have them handy for reference. 

7. Stories about story- writers, editors, publishers, 
etc., are in general undesirable. They indicate, also, that 
an author's ideas are running dry. 

8. The virtue of a literary agent lies chiefly in his 
knowing the market better than you do, and in his ability 
to get a decision from several magazines more quickly 
than you can if you live at a long distance from New York 

1 Cf. Samuel Johnson: "The reciprocal civility of authors is one of 
the most risible scenes in the farce of life." 

[250] 



Suggestions For Beginners 

City. Most agents who advertise are reliable, but none 
can guarantee to sell a poor story. Sometimes they can 
get a higher price for a good story than the author him- 
self could have obtained; but not always. 

9. If some competent critic of your acquaintance 
tells you — taking his Bible oath upon it — that your 
story is good, don't be discouraged by two or three re- 
jections. One manuscript was accepted by a periodical 
of large circulation after being refused by nearly thirty 
others. Keep a card index of the magazines to which 
you send each story. 

10. Submit manuscripts intended for a special issue, 
such as the Thanksgiving or Christmas issue, at least six 
months in advance, if possible. Good magazines do not 
wait until the last moment to provide themselves with 
stories for special numbers. 

The following additional suggestions are 
reprinted, by permission, from the Bulletin of 
the Authors' League of America. 1 They are 
intended not merely for beginners, but for 
all writers. 

11. Never employ an agent without an agreement. 

12. Sign no agreement that does not provide that the 
agent shall render periodically full and detailed reports 

1 All persons producing works subject to copyright protection, authors 
of stories, novels, poems, essays, text- books, etc., dramatic and photo- 
play authors, composers, painters, illustrators, sculptors, photographers, 
etc., are eligible for regular membership in the Authors' League of 
America. The offices of the league are at 33 West 42nd St., New York 
City. 

[251] 



The Contemporary Short Story 

as to his efforts to dispose of the property intrusted to 
him. 

13. Always retain at least one carbon copy of every 
manuscript you send out. 

14. It is well specifically to reserve dramatic and 
motion-picture rights in all instances. Have this under- 
standing confirmed by letter whenever possible. 

15. If the editor refuses a decision on work submitted, 
within a reasonable period of time, send him notice by 
registered letter that you are offering the work elsewhere, 
and proceed to do so, using your carbon copies. 



[252] 






TEST QUESTIONS 

1. Do the opening paragraphs clearly indicate the 
nature of the story? 

2. What sentences, if any, at various points fore- 
shadow the outcome? Are these suggestions too clear or 
too obscure? 

3. Are there any passages in which the author uses 
analysis and comment, instead of direct delineation of 
action or character? Do these passages improve or in- 
jure the narrative? 1 

4. Are there any didactic or sermonizing passages? 
Does the story have a moral, and if so is it hidden or is 
it thrust upon the reader? 

5. Is there any incident unrelated to the others? 
Could it be omitted without injury to the total effect? 

6. Does the narrative grow stronger or weaker toward 
the close? Is there a genuine climax? 

7. Is the end inevitable, or is it the result of accident 
or of a trick on the part of the author? If the climax is 
a surprise, does it convince and satisfy you? 

8. Are there any points where a person's talk or act 
is "out of character"? Is this intentional — i.e., is it 
done to help out the plot? And is it in any measure 
justified? 

9. Is the story of interest chiefly to a particular cir- 

1 See Winchester's Principles of Literary Criticism, pp. 303-306. 
[253] 



The Contemporary Short Story 

cle at a particular time, or does it possess permanent in- 
terest? In other words, is it journalism or literature? 

10. Is the story as a whole, or are any passages in it, 
painful or disgusting to you? If so, why? Would it 
produce the same effect on the average reader? x 

11. What is the atmosphere or mood of the narrative? 
Is it pathos, idealism, horror, youthful love, illicit pas- 
sion? Has the story unity — i.e., is the mood sustained 
throughout? Is it good art to relieve a serious story by 
passages of humor? 2 

12. In what respect is the story original? In climax, 
character, setting, style? Or in more than one? 

13. If the tale is laid in an unfamiliar locality, does it 
show that the author knows that locality thoroughly? 
In other words, is the work honest? 

14. Is the effect of the story inspiring or depressing? 
Is the author too fond of realism, and does he use it with- 
out discrimination? 3 

15. Does the style show finish, or carelessness? Is the 
vocabulary large? Does the tale reveal the influence of 
study of the great fiction writers, or is it too journalistic? 
Is the author trying to express himself effectively, or is 
he merely trying to be clever? 

16. Is it probable that the story would be accepted by 
Harper's Magazine? The Saturday Evening Post? The 
Popular? The Ladies' Home Journal? The All-Story 
Weekly ? The Metropolitan ? Why, or why not ? 

1 See Winchester's Principles of Literary Criticism, pp. 64-68. 

2 Ibid., pp. 92-97, 321. 3 Ibid., pp. 159-181, 300-303. 

[254] 



A LIST OF AMERICAN FICTION MAGAZINES 



[Some of these print only a small amount of fiction; 
others print virtually nothing else. Unless otherwise 
stated, the place of publication is New York City.] 



Adventure 
Ainslee's 
Ail-Around 
All-Story Weekly 
American 

American Boy (Detroit, Mich.) 
American Sunday Monthly 
Argosy 

Atlantic (Boston) 
Baseball 

Bellman (Minneapolis, Minn.) 
Black Cat (Salem, Mass.) 
Blue Book (Chicago) 
Boys' World (Elgin, 111.) 
Breezy Stories 
Century 
Collier's 
Cosmopolitan 

Country Gentleman (Philadel- 
phia) 
Craftsman 
Delineator 
Designer 
Detective Stories 
Everybody's 
Every Week 
Good Housekeeping 
Green Book (Chicago) 
Harper's Bazar 



Harper's Magazine 
Hearst's 
Housewife 

Illustrated Sunday Magazine 
International 

Ladies' Home Journal (Phila- 
delphia) 
Ladies' World 
Live Stories 
McCall's 
McClure's 
Masses 
Metropolitan 
Midland (Corning, la.) 
Munsey's 
National (Boston) 
National Sunday Magazine 
Outing 
Outlook 
Parisienne 
Pearson's 
People's 

People's Home Journal 
Pictorial Review 
Popular 
Railroad Man's 
Red Book (Chicago) 
Romance 
St. Nicholas 



[255] 



The Contemporary Short Story 

Saturday Evening Post (Phila- Ten-Story Book (Chicago) 

delphia) Today's 

Scribner's Top-Notch 

Short Stories (Garden City, Town Topics 

N. Y.) Woman's Home Companion 

Smart Set Woman's Magazine 

Smith's Woman's World (Chicago) 

Snappy Stories Young's 

Sunset (San Francisco) Youth's Companion (Boston) 



1256 2 



A FEW BOOKS ON THE SHORT STORY 

Ina Ten Eyck Firkins. An Index to Short Stories. White 
Plains, New York: H. W. Wilson Co. (This large volume 
is extremely useful, and would be more so but for the author's 
arbitrary methods of inclusion and exclusion of writers. Some 
of the most important recent collections of short stories are 
omitted.) 

Brander Matthews. The Philosophy of the Short Story. Bos- 
ton: Houghton Mifflin Co. 

Bliss Perry. A Study of Prose Fiction (Chapter XII, The 
Short Story). Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co. 

Stuart P. Sherman. A Book of Short Stories. New York: 
Henry Holt & Co. 

Henry S. Canby. A Study of the Short Story. New York: 
Henry Holt & Co. 

Walter B. Pitkin. The Art and the Business of Story Writing. 
New York: The Macmillan Co. 

Carolyn Wells. The Technique of the Mystery Story. Spring- 
field, Mass. : The Home Correspondence School. 

J. Berg Esenwein. Writing the Short Story. A Practical 
Handbook on the Rise, Structure, Writing, and Sale of the 
Modern Short Story. New York: Hinds, Noble & Eldredge. 



[257] 



A LIST OF REPRESENTATIVE SHORT 

STORIES 

Edgar Allan Poe 

The Cask of Amontillado 

The Gold-Bug 

The Fall of the House of Usher 

The Purloined Letter 

A Descent into the Maelstrom 

The Pit and the Pendulum 

The Murders in the Rue Morgue 

Ligeia 

The Masque of the Red Death 

Nathaniel Hawthorne 

The Birthmark (Mosses from an Old Manse) 

The Great Stone Face (The Snow Image) 

The Artist of the Beautiful (Mosses from an Old Manse) 

Rappaccini's Daughter (Mosses from an Old Manse) 

The Ambitious Guest (Twice Told Tales) 

The White Old Maid 

Wakefield " 

Ethan Brand 

-v 

Guy de Maupassant 

A Coward (The Odd Number) 

The Necklace 



The String 
On the Journey 
Happiness 
Moonlight 



[258] 



Representative Short Stories 

Robert Louis Stevenson 

Markheim (The Merry Men) 

The Merry Men 

Will o' the Mill (The Merry Men) 

A Lodging for the Night (New Arabian Nights) 

The Sire de Maletroit's Door 

The Pavilion on the Links 

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde 

Rudyard Kipling 

Without Benefit of Clergy (Life's Handicap) 

On Greenhow Hill 

The Mark of the Beast 

The City of Dreadful Night " 

The Man Who Was 

The Man Who Would Be King (Under the Deodars) 

The Drums of the Fore and Aft " 

The Brushwood Boy (The Day's Work) 

The Ship That Found Herself (The Day's Work) 

They (Traffics and Discoveries) 

An Habitation Enforced (Actions and Reactions) 

Maurice Hewlett 

Quattrocentisteria (Earthwork out of Tuscany) 
Madonna of the Peach Tree (Little Novels of Italy) 
Eugenio and Galeotto (New Canterbury Tales) 

Mary E. Wilkins-Freeman 

The Revolt of "Mother" (A Neio England Nun) 

The Scent of the Roses 

The Little Maid at the Door (Silence) 

O. Henry 
• A Municipal Report (Strictly Business) 
Phoebe (Roads of Destiny) 
The Gift of the Magi (The Four Million) 
[259] 



The Contemporary Short Story 

Bret Harte 

The Luck of Roaring Camp 

The Outcasts of Poker Flat (The Luck of Roaring Camp) 

Tennessee's Partner " 

Joseph Conrad 
Youth 

Heart of Darkness (Youth) 
The Lagoon (Tales of Unrest) 

William Wymark Jacobs 

The Monkey's Paw (The Lady of the Barge) 
A Black Affair (Many Cargoes) 

Herbert George Wells 

The Cone (Thirty Strange Stories) 
The Star (Tales of Space and Time) 

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle 

The Adventure of the Speckled Band (The Adventures of 

Sherlock Holmes) 
The Red-Headed League (The Adventures of Sherlock 
Holmes) 

Honore de Balzac 

A Passion in the Desert 
La Grande Breteche 

FRANgois Coppee 

The Piece of Bread 
The Substitute 

Prosper Merimee 
Mateo Falcone 

Charles Dickens 

A Christmas Carol 

Edward Everett Hale 

The Man Without a Country 

[260] 



i 



Representative Short Stories 



Thomas Bailey Aldrich 
Marjorie Daw 

Thomas Hardy 

The Three Strangers (Wessex Tales) 

For Conscience' Sake (Life's Little Ironies) 

Henry Cuyler Bunner 

The Love-Letters of Smith (Short Sixes) 

Henry James 

The Turn of the Screw (The Two Magics) 

Arthur Morrison 

On the Stairs (Tales of Mean Streets) 

Irvin S. Cobb 

The Belled Buzzard (The Escape of Mr. Trimm) 

Gertrude Atherton 
The Bell in the Fog 

Peter B. Kyne 

The Three Godfathers 

Fannie Hurst 

Power and Horsepower (Just Around the Corner) 

Freeman Tilden 

The Defective (That Night, and Other Satires) 

Donn Byrne 

Biplane No. 2 (Stories Without Women) 

Richard Harding Davis 

Her First Appearance (Van Bibber and Others) 

Charles G. D. Roberts 

The Truce (The Watchers of the Trails) 

Margaret Deland 

Good for the Soul (Old Chester Tales) 

[261] 



The Contemporary Short Story 

GOUVERNEUR MORRIS 

The Claws of the Tiger (It, and Other Stories) 

Jack London 
Love of Life 

Edith Wharton 

His Father's Son (Tales of Men and Ghosts) 

Katharine Fullerton Gerould 
Vain Oblations 

Thomas Nelson Page 

Marse Chan (In Ole Virginia) 

Myra Kelly 

Love Among the Blackboards (Little Citizens) 

Edna Ferber 

Roast Beef Medium 

E. W. HORNUNG 

The Honor of the Road (Stingaree) 

Booth Tarkington 

An Overwhelming Saturday (Cosmopolitan, Nov., 1913; 
reprinted in Penrod: chaps, xv, xvi, xvii) 
This collection of short stories — in Penrod — has been disguised 

to represent a novel. 

Arthur Cosslett Smith 
The Turquoise Cup 

Anthony Hope 

The House Opposite (The Dolly Dialogues) 

Melville Davisson Post 

The House of the Dead Man (Saturday Evening Post, Sept. 
30, 1911) 

Montague Glass 

Perfectly Neuter (Saturday Evening Post, May 22, 1915) 

[262] 



Representative Short Stories 

G. K. Chesterton 

The Head of Caesar (The Wisdom of Father Brown) 

Mary Synon 

The Bounty- Jumper (The Best Short Stories of 1915) 

Charles E. Van Loan 

Water Stuff (Buck Parvin and the Movies) 

John Galsworthy 

Quality (Short Stories for High Schools) 



[263] 



INDEX 



Abbott, Eleanor Hallowell, 191- 

192 
Action, lack of, 50-52, 80; past, 

130 
Adventure, 99, 144, 212, 213, 229 
Adventure of the Speckled Band, 

The, 110, 133, 175 
Advertising columns, relation of to 

reading matter, 240 
Agents, literary, 251 
Aldrich, Thomas Bailey, 107, 261 
Allegory, 170 

All-Story Weekly, 42, 212, 229, 254 
American Magazine, 53, 222, 232 
Ambitious Guest, The, 118, 133, 170 
Apprenticeship, period of, 35 
Aristotle, 9, 118, 140, 148 
Arnold, Matthew, 9, 176, 182 
Art and business, 171,212,246—248 
Artist of the Beautiful, The, 85, 

135, 170 
Artistic Temperament, 27 
Assault of Wings, The, 103-106 
Atherton, Gertrude, 13, 194, 218, 

261 
Atlantic Monthly, 80, 100, 218, 229 
Atmosphere, 17, 94, 110-111, 145, 

254 
Aumonier, Stacy, 147 
Austen, Jane, 27, 66, 174 
Authors' League of America, The, 

177, 211, 213, 251 



Belled Buzzard, The, 57, 162, 191 
Big Idea in the Backwoods, A, 

14-15 
Birthmark, The, 40, 143, 170 
"Blurb," 39 

Blythe, Samuel G., 31, 209 
Bookman, The, 71, 175 
Bounty- Jumper, The, 132, 175 
Brevity of expression, 197-198 
Broadway to Buenos Aires, 53 
Browning, Robert, 89, 154, 159- 

160 
Brunetiere, Ferdinand, 97 
Brunt, 193 
Brushwood Boy] The, 119-120, 161, 

166, 174 
Burns, Robert, 28, 116 
Business stories, 15, 209, 229 
Byrne, Donn, 22-23, 114, 129, 193, 

215, 230, 261 



Baker, George P., 123 
Balzac, Honore de, 42, 260 
Beginning, 111-115, 137 



Canby, Henry S., 190, 257 

Cask of Amontillado, The, 81, 111, 
133 

Century Magazine, 71, 80, 184, 
217, 227, 229, 232 

Chambers, Robert W., 22, 79, 161, 
187, 204 

Characters, 25, 78, 87, 96, 128, 
129, 141-160, 172-175; in ac- 
tion, 146; conventionality of, 
148; unusual, 158 

Chester, George Randolph, 63, 225 

Chesterton, Cecil, 160 

Chesterton, G. K., 47, 182, 214, 
263 

12651 



Index 



Christmas Carol, A, 40, 137, 162, 

167 
Churchill, Winston, 194, 205 
City of Dreadful Night, The, 136 
Classic literature, 163 
Climax, skilful, 58; unexpected, 

87, 107-110; secondary, 105; 

importance of, 106, 134, 138, 146 
Cobb, Irvin S., 19, 31, 57, 161, 

162, 191, 207, 230, 261 
Collier's Weekly, 27, 72, 198, 209, 

222, 226, 229, 230, 232, 245 
Complication, 118 
Conrad, Joseph, 15-17, 42, 144, 

161, 172, 188-189, 217, 230, 260 
Contrast, 159 

Copy-Cat, The, 6, 97, 128 
Cosmopolitan, 71, 173, 204, 205, 

214, 224, 226, 229 
Coward, A, 146 
Criminal, as hero, 63 

Daviess, Maria Thompson, 215 

Davis, Robert H., 222 

Defoe, Daniel, 27, 147 

Dekker, Thomas, 100 

Denouement. See Climax 

Description, 138, 157 

Detective story, the, 62 

Dialect, 199 

Dialogue, faulty, 75-77, 126-128, 
253; model of, 75, 198; pur- 
poses of, 75; office of, in struc- 
ture, 123-133, 137 

Dickens, Charles, 40, 99, 137, 138, 

162, 167, 260 
Didacticism, 40, 167, 253 
Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan, 19-20, 

47, 62, 80, 109, 110, 122, 133, 
142, 161, 162, 175, 230, 260 
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, 117 
Drama vs. short story, 97-99, 124 



Dream Children, 69 
Dryden, John, 140 
Dullness, 49-50 

Editors and editorial policies, 8, 9, 
36, 61-73, 88, 106, 141, 172, 177, 
184, 196, 203-228, 233-239, 244, 
246-248 

Egotism of amateurs, 30-31 

Eliot, George, 167 

Emotion, tests of, 66-67 

Ending, 87; weak, 103-106, 138; 
unexpected, 107-110 

Epsie of Blue Sky, 130-132 

Ethan Brand, 170 

Everybody's, 21, 127 

Fact, stories founded on, 73-75, 

81, 82 
Fall of the House of Usher, The, 87, 

136, 162, 175 
Falstaff, 63, 78 

Ferber, Edna, 37, 53, 161, 225, 262 
Fiction magazines, number of in 

America, 35 
"Fictionized article," the, 209 
First-person narration, 111, 125 
Fish, Horace, 21-22 
Flaubert, Gustave, 34 
Foote, John Taintor, 3 
Friends, The, 147 

Galsworthy, John, 172, 182, 195, 

230, 263 
Gerould, Katharine Fullerton, 41, 

51, 154, 230, 262 
Glanvil, Joseph, 98 
Glass, Montague, 161, 220-221, 

225, 230, 262 
Gold-Bug, The, 120, 162, 175 
Good Housekeeping, 12, 191, 216, 

226, 227, 230, 232 



[%mi 



Index 



Good Influence, The, 25 
Graft, 129 

Great Stone Face, The, 170, 
Grimshaw, Beatrice, 53 
Gulliver's Travels, 2, 147 



Hale, Edward Everett, 18, 260 
Happy ending, the, 82, 228, 230 
Harper's Bazar, 192, 226 
Harper's Magazine, 13, 42, 58, 71, 

80, 90, 172, 184, 217, 226, 227, 

228, 229, 232, 242, 250, 254 
Harris, Corra, 12, 130, 230 
Harrison, Frederic, 176 
Harte, Bret, 161, 162, 198, 260 
Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 1, 40, 42, 

52, 85, 88, 118, 133, 138, 143, 

159, 167, 169-170, 175, 199, 

258 
Hazlitt, William, 67, 145, 158, 176, 

181, 200 
Heart of Darkness, 145, 161, 162, 

172, 188 
Henry, O., 24, 27, 32, 34, 42, 54, 

82, 108, 111, 112, 136, 138, 161, 

168-169, 171, 173, 175, 177, 198, 

200, 218, 259 
Hewlett, Maurice, 90, 160, 164, 

199, 200, 207, 259 
Hooker-up-the-Back, The, 37 
Hope, Anthony, 75, 262 
Hopkins, William John, 192 
Horror, element of, 59 
Humor, 108, 209, 212, 230 
Hurst, Fannie, 37, 193, 194, 198, 

219, 230, 261 

Ibsen, Henrik, 60 
Imagination, 1, 3, 20, 22, 39 
Imitation of famous authors, 34 
Impression, feebleness of, 66; 
unity of, 86 



Incidents, too many, 116; related, 
117-118; unrelated, 253; virile, 
175 141 

Individuality, 196 

Insanity, as subject of story, 57 

In Step, 90-93 

Interest, story, 51-52 

Inward Empire, The, 21-22 

Irving, Washington, 136 

Jacobs, W. W., 31-32, 57, 96, 122, 
124, 133, 139, 145, 161, 162, 
184, 198, 199, 217, 230, 260 

James, Henry, 9, 50, 82, 121, 146, 
154, 167, 261 

Johnson, Samuel, 1, 2, 250 

Jones, Frank Goewey, 28-29 

Jonson, Ben, 136 

Journalism vs. art, 31-32, 95, 
190, 247, 254 

Justice, 12 

Kelly, Myra, 21, 29, 262 
Kipling, Rudyard, 14, 18, 19-20, 
22, 30, 38, 45, 64, 85, 88, 101, 
111, 118, 124, 133, 136, 138, 
143, 158, 161, 166, 168-169, 
173, 181, 186, 190, 198, 200, 

215, 228, 230, 259 
Kyne, Peter B., 98, 143, 165, 173, 

194, 210, 230, 261 

Ladies' Home Journal, 100, 215, 

216, 226, 227, 228, 229, 254 
Lady, or the Tiger, The, 40 
Lagoon, The, 188-189 
Lamb, Charles, 69-70, 163, 181 
Length of stories, 88, 126, 197, 

221-222 
Ligeia, 97 

Little Maid at the Door, The, 69 
Living up to Letchwood, 127 



[267] 



Index 



Lodging for the Night, A, 157, 161, 

164 
London, Jack, 182, 195, 247, 262 
Lord Provides, The, 207-209 
Lorimer, George Horace, 32, 209- 

210 
Love, element of, 214-216 
Luck of Roaring Camp, The, 162 

McClure's, 10, 28, 96, 222, 227, 232 
Madonna of the Peach Tree, 90 
Man's Game, A, 114 
Manuscripts, amateur, 48 
Man Who Was, The, 133, 135, 136, 

137, 175 
Man Who Would Be King, The, 

14, 42, 112, 159, 161, 163, 174, 

198 
Man Without a Country, The, 18 
Marjorie Daw, 107 
Markheim, 143, 185-186 
Mark of the Beast, The, 136 
Marse Chan, 126 

Masque of the Red Death, The, 137 
Materials, lack of acquaintance 

with, 52-54, 83, 95 
Matthews, Brander, 84, 87, 97, 

101, 142, 257 
Maupassant, Guy de, 2, 18, 34, 

44, 68, 88, 101, 107, 133, 139, 

143, 146, 170, 175, 197, 199, 215, 

231, 258 
Metropolitan, 16, 110, 124, 182, 

193, 229, 232, 241 
Milton, John, 183 

Monkey's Paw, The, 57-60, 122, 

133 
Morris, Gouverneur, 161, 184, 

194, 204, 230, 262 
Morrison, Arthur, 93, 135, 261 
Motion pictures, 35, 89, 243, 252 
Muir, Ward, 10, 94, 135 



Municipal Report, A, 161, 163 

Munsey's, 218 

Murders in the Rue Morgue, The, 

137 
My Last Duchess, 89 
Mystery, element of, 141-144, 172 

Nation, The, 27, 118, 128 
Necklace, The, 2, 107, 133, 175 
Newspaper, influence of, on maga- 
zine, 245-246 
Note-book, value of, 24 
Novel vs. short story, 87, 101, 138, 
201, 215, 231 

O'Brien, Edward J., 41, 175, 194 

Obscurity, 118-120, 139 

On the Stairs, 93-94, 135 

On Greenhow Hill, 136 

Opus 43, Number 6, 3, 97 

Originality, impression of, 2; due 
to psychology, 14, 41; to at- 
mosphere, 17; style, 17, 23; 
in only one story, 18; too dar- 
ing, 20, 22, 41; personality, 25, 
30; Jane Austen's kind of, 27; 
vaudeville cleverness as a sub- 
stitute for, 31-33; obtained by 
keen observation, 35; shown in 
title, 37-38 

Overwhelming Saturday, An, 173 

Outcasts of Poker Flat, The, 161, 
165, 198 

Page, Thomas Nelson, 136, 161, 

162, 262 
Pathos, 64, 69, 173 
Pavilion on the Links, The, 162 
Penrod stories, 75, 143, 173, 225 
Perry, Bliss, 153, 160, 257 
Personality, necessity of, 67, 195- 

196 



[£68] 



Index 



Phillips, David Graham, 28 
Phillpotts, Eden, 207 
Phoebe, 112-113, 136, 175 
Pictorial Review, 72, 81, 216, 227, 

229, 231, 238 
Pit and the Pendulum, The, 153, 

172 
Pitkin, Walter B., 99, 257 
Plausibility, 14, 43-47, 74, 81 
Plot, triteness of, 47-49, 148; 

definition of, 85 ; place of, 141 ; 

lack of, in Conrad, 144-145 
Plot-ridden characters, 46 
Poe, Edgar Allan, 1, 42, 57, 62-63, 

81, 82, 84, 85-88, 97, 101, 103, 

111, 120, 122, 124, 133, 137, 

153, 162, 169, 170, 172, 175, 191, 

199, 231, 258 
Poetry, value of for fiction-writers, 

28 
Popular, 99, 114, 212, 213, 222, 

229, 230, 232, 254 
Post, Melville Davisson, 47, 109, 

140, 214, 225, 230, 262 
Power and Horsepower, 199 
Prices for stories, 224 
Prison-Made, 113-114 
Problem story, the, 40, 141, 172, 

204 
"Punch," lack of, 66 
Purloined Letter, The, 137 

Quality, 172 

Quattrocentisteria, 164, 207, 259 

Quick, Herbert, 211 

Realism, 65-66, 73, 93, 160-161, 

254 
Red Book, The, 110, 222, 229 
Red-Headed League, The, 39 
Reeve, Arthur B., 122, 214, 225, 

245 



Revision, 95, 115 

Revolt of ''Mother," The, 40, 97, 

175 
Rip Van Winkle, 136 
Roberts, Charles G. D. f 103, 261 
Romanticism, 160 
Roosevelt, Theodore, 241 
Rowland, Henry C, 6, 128 
Ruskin, John, 203 

Sacrificial Altar, The, 13-14 

Saintsbury, George, 176 

Sam's Ghost, 124-125 

Saturday Evening Post, 3, 6, 19, 
27, 40, 57, 70, 81, 98, 99, 109, 
128, 129, 135, 143, 172, 177, 
198, 199, 204, 207, 209-210, 
216, 219, 222, 224, 226, 228, 
229, 238, 239, 245, 250 

Scott, Sir Walter, 138 

Scribner's, 22, 71, 80, 132, 218, 
227, 228, 232, 241 

Setting, foreign, 70, 246 

Sex story, the, 62, 164, 181, 204- 
208 

Shadow Line, The, 16-17 

Shakespeare, William, 3, 27, 50, 
51, 77-79, 118, 123, 142, 160, 
174, 196, 200, 206, 218 

Sherlock Holmes stories, the, 20, 
80, 110, 121, 137, 142, 159, 
173, 214 

Sherman, Stuart P., 108, 168, 257 

Short Story, definition of, 87; re- 
lation to novel, 87, 101; to 
drama, 97-99. 

Sire de MaletroiVs Door, The, 82, 
133, 137, 157, 158, 185 

Sisson, Edgar G., 71 

Slang, 171, 177 

Smart Set, 12, 25, 103, 150, 222, 
226 



[269] 



Index 



Springer, Fleta Campbell, 90 

Springer, Thomas Grant, 55 

Spring Song, The, 219-220 

Stephen, Leslie, 3, 43, 203 

Stevenson, Robert Louis, 42, 52, 
82, 88, 99, 110, 112, 133, 137, 
138, 143, 157, 161, 162, 177, 
181, 185, 197, 199, 215, 231, 259 

Stockton, Frank, 40 

Strahan, Kay Cleaver, 46 

Strand, 20, 71, 109, 231 

Street, Julian, 126, 206 

Strictly Business, 33 

String, The, 44 

Structure, relation to geometry, 
87; authors' descriptions of, 
90-93, 94-96; condensation, 
96; struggle and will power, 
97-99; careless, 100, 102-103; 
weak ending, 103-106; too 
many incidents, 116; lack of 
unity, 117; use of suggestion, 
118-123; dialogue, 123-133; ar- 
tifice, 134-135, 139 

Study in Scarlet, A, 20 

Style, 171; colloquial, in periodi- 
cals, 178; deficiencies of Ameri- 
can fiction-writers, 181-183; 
superiority of British, 183-184; 
Stevenson as a model, 185- 
186; Thackeray, 186-187; Con- 
rad, 188-189; Kipling, faults 
and virtues, 189-190; natural- 
ness, 194-195; personality, 195- 
197; brevity, 197-198; exercise 
in diction and phraseology, 201- 
202 

Subject, importance of, 9, 10; 
undesirable, 54-57, 61-65, 81 

Suggestion, 87, 118-123, 137 

Sullivan, Mark, 72 

Sunrise, 10, 94-96 



Superdirigible "Gamma-I," 22 
Supernatural, the, 44-45 
Surprise, element of, 107-110, 253 
Suspense, element of, 58, 121, 122, 

123 
Swift, Jonathan, 2, 147, 177, 195- 

196 
Synon, Mary, 132, 175, 263 

Tarkington, Booth, 29, 75, 143, 

161, 173, 194, 205, 225, 230, 262 
Taste, literary, 203 
"T. £.,"37 
Thackeray, William* Makepeace, 

27, 99, 186-187, 201 
They, 14, 39, 119, 166 
Three Godfathers, The, 143, 165, 

173 
Tilden, Freeman, 12, 25, 113, 194, 

230, 261 
Title, 37-38 
Tragedy, 60, 247 
Triumph of Night, The, 136 
Turn of the Screw, The, 121-122 
Twain, Mark, 27 

Unities, the dramatic, 88, 93, 136 
Unity of impression, 86 
Unpleasant, the, 54-60, 81, 227, 
247, 254 

Vain Oblations, 154-156 

Vance, Arthur T., 72 

Van Loan, Charles E., 18, 29, 126, 

194, 210, 213, 225, 230, 263 
Verisimilitude, 29 

WeUs, H. G., 41, 45, 260 
Wharton, Edith, 75, 136, 194, 198, 

230, 262 
Whiting, Robert Rudd, 72 
Wilkins-Freeman, Mary E., 40, 



[270] 



Index 



54, 69, 81, 97, 139, 161, 173, 

175, 217, 227, 230, 259 
William the Conqueror, 14, 143 
Will o' the Mill, 112, 157, 162, 198 
Wilson, Harry Leon, 145, 148, 

180, 191 
Winchester, C. T., 66, 140, 169, 

253, 254 
Wireless, 45 
Wister, Owen, 100 
With a Savour of Salt, 192 



Without Benefit of Clergy, 40, 64, 

113, 136, 161, 186 
Woman's Home Companion, 216, 

230 
Wright, Harold Bell, 100, 187 

Youth, 144-145, 172 

Zelig, 175 
Zola, Emile, 160 



[271] 



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